ecting this commission, something perhaps is
owed--and getting him to furnish an alternative plan to mine, and
submitting the choice of designs to some members of the Royal Institute
of British Architects. This letter makes it still more advisable than
before.'

'Very well,' said Paula reluctantly.

'Let him have all the particulars you have been good enough to explain
to me--so that we start fair in the competition.'

She looked negligently on the grass. 'I will tell the building steward
to write them out for him,' she said.

The party separated and entered the church by different doors. Somerset
went to a nook of the building that he had often intended to visit. It
was called the Stancy aisle; and in it stood the tombs of that family.
Somerset examined them: they were unusually rich and numerous, beginning
with cross-legged knights in hauberks of chain-mail, their ladies beside
them in wimple and cover-chief, all more or less coated with the green
mould and dirt of ages: and continuing with others of later date, in
fine alabaster, gilded and coloured, some of them wearing round their
necks the Yorkist collar of suns and roses, the livery of Edward the
Fourth. In scrutinizing the tallest canopy over these he beheld Paula
behind it, as if in contemplation of the same objects.

'You came to the church to sketch these monuments, I suppose, Mr.
Somerset?' she asked, as soon as she saw him.

'No. I came to speak to you about the letter.'

She sighed. 'Yes: that letter,' she said. 'I am persecuted! If I had
been one of these it would never have been written.' She tapped the
alabaster effigy of a recumbent lady with her parasol.

'They are interesting, are they not?' he said. 'She is beautifully
preserved. The gilding is nearly gone, but beyond that she is perfect.'

'She is like Charlotte,' said Paula. And what was much like another sigh
escaped her lips.

Somerset admitted that there was a resemblance, while Paula drew her
forefinger across the marble face of the effigy, and at length took
out her handkerchief, and began wiping the dust from the hollows of the
features. He looked on, wondering what her sigh had meant, but guessing
that it had been somehow caused by the sight of these sculptures
in connection with the newspaper writer's denunciation of her as an
irresponsible outsider.

The secret was out when in answer to his question, idly put, if she
wished she were like one of these, she said, with exception