t his sketch-book, while he marked down the lines just acquired.

'You said the other day,' she observed, 'that early Gothic work might be
known by the under-cutting, or something to that effect. I have looked
in Rickman and the Oxford Glossary, but I cannot quite understand what
you meant.'

It was only too probable to her lover, from the way in which she
turned to him, that she HAD looked in Rickman and the Glossary, and was
thinking of nothing in the world but of the subject of her inquiry.

'I can show you, by actual example, if you will come to the chapel?' he
returned hesitatingly.

'Don't go on purpose to show me--when you are there on your own account
I will come in.'

'I shall be there in half-an-hour.'

'Very well,' said Paula. She looked out of a window, and, seeing Miss De
Stancy on the terrace, left him.

Somerset stood thinking of what he had said. He had no occasion whatever
to go into the chapel of the castle that day. He had been tempted by her
words to say he would be there, and 'half-an-hour' had come to his lips
almost without his knowledge. This community of interest--if it were not
anything more tender--was growing serious. What had passed between them
amounted to an appointment; they were going to meet in the most solitary
chamber of the whole solitary pile. Could it be that Paula had well
considered this in replying with her friendly 'Very well?' Probably not.

Somerset proceeded to the chapel and waited. With the progress of the
seconds towards the half-hour he began to discover that a dangerous
admiration for this girl had risen within him. Yet so imaginative was
his passion that he hardly knew a single feature of her countenance well
enough to remember it in her absence. The meditative judgment of things
and men which had been his habit up to the moment of seeing her in
the Baptist chapel seemed to have left him--nothing remained but a
distracting wish to be always near her, and it was quite with dismay
that he recognized what immense importance he was attaching to the
question whether she would keep the trifling engagement or not.

The chapel of Stancy Castle was a silent place, heaped up in corners
with a lumber of old panels, framework, and broken coloured glass. Here
no clock could be heard beating out the hours of the day--here no
voice of priest or deacon had for generations uttered the daily
service denoting how the year rolls on. The stagnation of the spot was
sufficient to d