place and in
certain magnificent chants, Bindon spent all his time in meditation upon
the theme of Elizabeth, and the extreme purification his soul had
undergone since he first saw her, and whether he would be able to get a
dispensation to marry her from the experienced and sympathetic Father in
spite of the approaching "sin" of her divorce; and then ... Bindon would
lean against a pillar of the quadrangle and lapse into reveries on the
superiority of virtuous love to any other form of indulgence. A curious
feeling in his back and chest that was trying to attract his attention,
a disposition to be hot or shiver, a general sense of ill-health and
cutaneous discomfort he did his best to ignore. All that of course
belonged to the old life that he was shaking off.

When he came out of retreat he went at once to Mwres to ask for news of
Elizabeth. Mwres was clearly under the impression that he was an
exemplary father, profoundly touched about the heart by his child's
unhappiness. "She was pale," he said, greatly moved; "She was pale. When
I asked her to come away and leave him--and be happy--she put her head
down upon the table"--Mwres sniffed--"and cried."

His agitation was so great that he could say no more.

"Ah!" said Bindon, respecting this manly grief. "Oh!" said Bindon quite
suddenly, with his hand to his side.

Mwres looked up sharply out of the pit of his sorrows, startled. "What's
the matter?" he asked, visibly concerned.

"A most violent pain. Excuse me! You were telling me about Elizabeth."

And Mwres, after a decent solicitude for Bindon's pain, proceeded with
his report. It was even unexpectedly hopeful. Elizabeth, in her first
emotion at discovering that her father had not absolutely deserted her,
had been frank with him about her sorrows and disgusts.

"Yes," said Bindon, magnificently, "I shall have her yet." And then that
novel pain twitched him for the second time.

For these lower pains the priest was comparatively ineffectual,
inclining rather to regard the body and them as mental illusions
amenable to contemplation; so Bindon took it to a man of a class he
loathed, a medical man of extraordinary repute and incivility. "We must
go all over you," said the medical man, and did so with the most
disgusting frankness. "Did you ever bring any children into the world?"
asked this gross materialist among other impertinent questions.

"Not that I know of," said Bindon, too amazed to stand upon his digni