ning-room, across the hall which separated the drawing-room from
the dining-room, and knew that poor Ernest was being beaten.

"I have sent him up to bed," said Theobald, as he returned to the drawing-
room, "and now, Christina, I think we will have the servants in to
prayers," and he rang the bell for them, red-handed as he was.

CHAPTER XXIII

The man-servant William came and set the chairs for the maids, and
presently they filed in. First Christina's maid, then the cook, then the
housemaid, then William, and then the coachman. I sat opposite them, and
watched their faces as Theobald read a chapter from the Bible. They were
nice people, but more absolute vacancy I never saw upon the countenances
of human beings.

Theobald began by reading a few verses from the Old Testament, according
to some system of his own. On this occasion the passage came from the
fifteenth chapter of Numbers: it had no particular bearing that I could
see upon anything which was going on just then, but the spirit which
breathed throughout the whole seemed to me to be so like that of Theobald
himself, that I could understand better after hearing it, how he came to
think as he thought, and act as he acted.

The verses are as follows--

"But the soul that doeth aught presumptuously, whether he be born in
the land or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul
shall be cut off from among his people.

"Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken His
commandments, that soul shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall
be upon him.

"And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found a
man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.

"And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and
Aaron, and unto all the congregation.

"And they put him in ward because it was not declared what should be
done to him.

"And the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall be surely put to death;
all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.

"And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him
with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

"Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them
fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations,
and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of b