a Brotherhood founded by one of his friends. It may be that the
world would be well rid of you, my dear child. But it is not the world
only that we must consider. Would you grace the recesses of the Church?"

"I could but try," said Zuleika.

"'You could but try' are the very words Dr. Pusey used to me. I ventured
to say that in such a matter effort itself was a stigma of unfitness.
For all my moods of revulsion, I knew that my place was in the world. I
stayed there."

"But suppose, grand-papa"--and, seeing in fancy the vast agitated
flotilla of crinolines, she could not forbear a smile--"suppose all the
young ladies of that period had drowned themselves for love of you?"

Her smile seemed to nettle the Warden. "I was greatly admired," he said.
"Greatly," he repeated.

"And you liked that, grand-papa?"

"Yes, my dear. Yes, I am afraid I did. But I never encouraged it."

"Your own heart was never touched?"

"Never, until I met Laura Frith."

"Who was she?"

"She was my future wife."

"And how was it you singled her out from the rest? Was she very
beautiful?"

"No. It cannot be said that she was beautiful. Indeed, she was accounted
plain. I think it was her great dignity that attracted me. She did not
smile archly at me, nor shake her ringlets. In those days it was the
fashion for young ladies to embroider slippers for such men in holy
orders as best pleased their fancy. I received hundreds--thousands--of
such slippers. But never a pair from Laura Frith."

"She did not love you?" asked Zuleika, who had seated herself on the
floor at her grandfather's feet.

I concluded that she did not. It interested me very greatly. It fired
me.

"Was she incapable of love?"

"No, it was notorious in her circle that she had loved often, but loved
in vain."

"Why did she marry you?"

"I think she was fatigued by my importunities. She was not very strong.
But it may be that she married me out of pique. She never told me. I did
not inquire."

"Yet you were very happy with her?"

"While she lived, I was ideally happy."

The young woman stretched out a hand, and laid it on the clasped hands
of the old man. He sat gazing into the past. She was silent for a while;
and in her eyes, still fixed intently on his face, there were tears.

"Grand-papa dear"--but there were tears in her voice, too.

"My child, you don't understand. If I had needed pity--"

"I do understand--so well. I wasn't pitying you, dear, I was env