for the mountains lately--and yet I like
it here. I love this beautiful room. I adore your sister. I know I
could have a delightful time if only my guides weren't so anxious to
have me convert the world."

"I grow more and more conscience-smitten!" he exclaimed. "To think we
should be the ones to tie and torture you, and at our first
dinner-party!"

"Please don't blame yourself. It was not your fault; grandfather
insisted on talking with you, and I--I wished it very much." Her face
grew radiant with pleasure. "Oh, I'm so glad you made it a
test-sitting!--I want you to believe in me. I mean that I don't
deceive--"

"I am sure of that."

"There are so many things I want to talk with you about--but not
now--it is late."

Clarke, who had grown too restless to remain seated, interrupted a
story which Kate was relating, and rose, saying, harshly: "It is time
for us to be going. Pratt will lock us out if we don't."

The cloud again fell on Viola's face--her little hour of freedom from
her keeper was over. Morton felt the change in her, and so did Kate,
who fairly pleaded with the mother to remain. "It is late and you are
tired, and after this wonderful evening you ought not to go back to
that gloomy place."

Mrs. Lambert looked at Clarke, whose reply was stern. "No, we must
return."

Something very sweet and intimate was in Morton's voice as he found
opportunity to say to Viola: "I don't like to think of you returning
to that gilded mausoleum. It is a most unwholesome place for you. You
are too closely surrounded with morbid influences."

"I know it. I dread to go back--I admit that. I suppose Mr. Pratt is a
good man, I know he does a great deal for the faith, and he is very
generous to us, but oh, he is so vulgar, so impertinent! He bores me
nearly frantic by being always at my elbow. I shudder when he touches
me as if he were some sort of evil animal. Mother can't realize how he
annoys and depresses me, and Anthony insists that we must endure it."

"I wish you'd stay here!" he exclaimed, impulsively. "Accept my
sister's invitation--it would give us such an opportunity to talk of
this sitting. Come, let me send for your trunks."

She shrank a little from his eager eyes, and Mrs. Lambert again
interposed. "It is quite impossible, professor; perhaps some other
time."

Viola yielded to her mother and went away to get her cloak, and Morton
turned to Clarke. "One of the conditions of my promise to organize a
com