eyes that first sent a thrill through me that
boded ill for Roman orders. After that we lived in a continual
state of rumours and alarms, secret messages and expeditions, until
I, being strong in the arm and the wind and a feather-weight, was
one of those honoured by rowing the Queen and Prince across the
river. M. de St. Victor accepted me. He told me there would be two
nurses, but never knew or cared who they were, nor did I guess, as
we sat in the dark, how near I was to you. And only for one second
did I see your face, as you were entering the carriage, and I
blessed you the more for what you were doing for Her Majesty."

He proceeded to tell how he had accompanied the Jesuit fathers, on
their leaving London, to the great English seminary at Douai, and
being for the time convinced by them that his feelings towards Anne
were a delusion of the enemy, he had studied with all his might, and
as health and monotony of life began to have their accustomed effect
in rousing the restlessness and mischievousness of his nature, with
all the passions of manhood growing upon him, he strove to force
them down by fasting and scourging. He told, in a bitter, almost
savage way, of his endeavours to flog his demon out of himself, and
of his anger and disappointment at finding Piers Pilgrim in the
seminary of Douai, quite as subject to his attacks as ever was Perry
Oakshott under a sermon of Mr. Horncastle's.

Then came the information among the students that the governor of
the city, the Marquis de Nidemerle, had brought some English
gentlemen and ladies to visit the gardens. As most of the students
were of British families there was curiosity as to who they were,
and thus Peregrine heard that one was young Archfield of the
Hampshire family, with his tutor, and the lady was Mistress Darpent,
daughter to a French lawyer, who had settled in England after the
Fronde. Anne's name had not transpired, for she was viewed merely
as an attendant. Peregrine had been out on some errand in the town,
and had a distant view of his enemy as he held him, flaunting about
with a fine lady on his arm, forgetting the poor little pretty wife
whom no doubt he had frightened to death."

"Oh! you little know how tenderly he speaks of her."

"Tenderly!--that's the way they speak of me at Oakwood, eh? Human,
not to say elf, nature, could not withstand giving the fellow a
start. I sped off, whipped into the Church, popped into a surplice
I found