"Well, I haven't progressed much; I think I am about where you left me. After all, you can't demand progress on the part of a disciple whom you chose to abandon so unceremoniously."

"I take it that you know why I did that," said Nigel, drilling holes in the moist earth with his stick.

"I am so sorry to be obliged to confess that I don't; for I should have liked you to go on believing in my omniscience. However, I will hazard another guess. You went away because you thought that your departure was the best preliminary step that you could take towards breaking off your engagement to Monica."

Nigel shook his head. "No; that was not my reason. I am in honour bound to be true to my engagement, and it will never be broken off by me. But I think-or rather I am sure-that you want it to be broken off. Why?"

66

She responded by a counter-query. 'Why did you

leave Yorkshire ?"

After remaining silent for a moment, he replied curtly, "I shall not tell you."

་་

'Ah, then I may fairly decline to tell you why I should be glad to see you and Monica freed from one another."

"You admit, then," he retorted quickly, "that you would be glad to see us parted, and you admit that you did your best to part us."

At this she shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't make that last admission; but you are welcome to it, if it increases your happiness in any way."

"I doubt whether anything could increase my happiness or lessen my unhappiness," answered Nigel moodily.

"Not even the conversion of a heretic?" she asked, with a smile and a change of intonation which swiftly recalled to him memories of brighter days.

But he steeled himself against cajolery. "You were only making a fool of me," he answered bitterly; you never really contemplated becoming a Catholic."

"There you are wrong; I did contemplate it, and I contemplate it still. Only I must have time. You yourself would allow, I suppose, that an insincere conversion is a worse thing than scepticism. I want to be a Catholic, not because your religion would make me good, for it does not always seem to have that effect

"Oh, I understand," interrupted Nigel; "what you say is only too true, and—and it adds to my sin."

"What sin ?" she inquired, with an air of innocence which at once deprived her of her half-recovered influence over him. Then, perceiving immediately that she had made a false step, she wisely left it alone and resumed :

"No, not because it would make me good, but because it appears to offer so many consolations, and after what you saw yesterday, you can believe, I daresay, that I am often in need of consolations."

He nodded and sighed; but, as he said nothing, she resumed: "Religion is a substitute and, provided that one can get up enough enthusiasm for it, it may be an ample one; only-aren't there moments when you feel inclined to throw the whole thing overboard and seek your happiness where you can find it?"

"You know there are," he answered; "I suppose that is why you ask."

"I asked for the pleasure of hearing you confess that you are no better than I am. I wonder where we shall end, you and I!"

"Sometimes," said Nigel, "I think that I shall end by going to the Devil."

He had almost the appearance of inviting her to accompany him to that destination. He drew a step

1

nearer, his burning eyes forced hers to meet them, he was visibly at her mercy up to a certain point. But only up to a certain point; she had the wit to realise that and to divine that, happen what might, he would never offer marriage to a Protestant. She was ready, it is true, to abjure Protestantism; but the time had by no means come yet for taking so decisive a step. Moreover, she did not love the man, which counted for something with her, although she was always telling herself that she could not afford to be sentimental. There was another man whom she did love, and-there were possibilities which were becoming more and more apparent to her. As for Nigel, she had ascertained from him all that she had wished to ascertain, and dismissal, accompanied by a douche of cold water, seemed to be what he chiefly required. She therefore rejoined

lightly:

"Oh, I hope not. But that, after all, is your affair." "In other words," said he, frowning, "it is a matter of complete indifference to you whether I go to the Devil or not."

"Please don't think me so inhuman as that, Mr. Scarth," she returned, with a slight laugh; "I only meant that I personally can neither hold you back nor drive you on. I don't pretend to wish that your engagement to Monica should hold, and, in spite of what you said just now, I don't think it will hold; but it may come to an end perhaps without your having recourse to quite such violent measures."

It was always Nigel's way to be easily discouraged. Possibly he had good reason to be so in the present instance; yet not many men, under the circumstances, would have concluded at once, as he did, that it would be useless to prolong the interview. He said :

"You have been rather a puzzle to me, Miss Dallison,

but I think I understand now what you have been aiming at all along. Well, it looks as if you had been successful, or were likely to be. Now I must not keep you standing any longer in this damp place."

He raised his hat, without offering his hand, and drew back.

"Where are you going?" she asked, half-involuntarily.

"I thought I had told you. It is a goal to which there are plenty of short cuts."

He bowed, turned on his heel and marched off, thus accomplishing something of a dramatic exit. He was entitled to such comfort as he could obtain from that small achievement, considering how utterly humiliated he felt and how convinced he was that Miss Dallison's only feeling for him was one of amused disdain.

Her sentiments, as she watched his retreating figure, were in truth not far removed from those ascribed to her.

"Poor fellow!" she mused; "I suppose he must really be fond of me, although he has such a mean opinion of me; I suppose I might oust Monica and put myself in her place, if it were good enough. But it isn't good enough; I didn't reject Sol Wharton for that. He won't go to the dogs either; he will throw himself upon the bosom of Mother Church again, instead. Which will be so much better for him and for everybody else!"

"L

CHAPTER XIV

DISSIPATION UNDER DIFFICULTIES

OST the hounds?" echoed Lord Lannowe, in reply to a question addressed to him while he was jogging homewards on a November afternoon. "Well, yes, unless you prefer to put it more accurately, Mr. Trenchard, and say that the hounds and the field have lost me, cunning as I have learned to be in my old age. There was a time when I used to despise the roadsters, but I have lived to join them-and to share their occasional disappointments philosophically. By living long enough one manages to get upon tolerably intimate terms with disappointment, I find."

Old Humphry, who was driving his mail-phaeton along the miry lanes, and who had pulled up on overtaking his neighbour, responded with an eloquent shrug of the shoulders.

"To whom do you say it! Yet one perseveres and one goes on hoping against hope."

"I am afraid from that," said Lord Lannowe sympathetically, "that your visit to Germany has brought about no encouraging results."

"Absolutely none that I can detect, although I am assured that there is a shade of improvement. But my disappointments don't end with the annual one this time, I am sorry to say. Bailey, aren't we getting somewhere near Rixmouth hill?"