was that he was willing to devote himself and all that he
had to her happiness, I do not think that at the present moment he was
disturbed in that direction. It is hardly natural, perhaps, that a man
should love a woman with such devotion as to wish to make her happy by
giving her to another man. Roger told himself that Paul would be an
unsafe husband, a fickle husband,--one who might be carried hither and
thither both in his circumstances and his feelings,--and that it would
be better for Hetta that she should not marry him; but at the same
time he was unhappy as he reflected that he himself was a party to a
certain amount of deceit.

And yet he had said not a word. He had referred Hetta to the man
himself. He thought that he knew, and he did indeed accurately know,
the state of Hetta's mind. She was wretched because she thought that
while her lover was winning her love, while she herself was willingly
allowing him to win her love, he was dallying with another woman, and
making to that other woman promises the same as those he made to her.
This was not true. Roger knew that it was not true. But when he tried
to quiet his conscience by saying that they must fight it out among
themselves, he felt himself to be uneasy under that assurance.

His life at Carbury, at this time, was very desolate. He had become
tired of the priest, who, in spite of various repulses, had never for
a moment relaxed his efforts to convert his friend. Roger had told him
once that he must beg that religion might not be made the subject of
further conversation between them. In answer to this, Father Barham
had declared that he would never consent to remain as an intimate
associate with any man on those terms. Roger had persisted in his
stipulation, and the priest had then suggested that it was his host's
intention to banish him from Carbury Hall. Roger had made no reply,
and the priest had of course been banished. But even this added to his
misery. Father Barham was a gentleman, was a good man, and in great
penury. To ill-treat such a one, to expel such a one from his house,
seemed to Roger to be an abominable cruelty. He was unhappy with
himself about the priest, and yet he could not bid the man come back
to him. It was already being said of him among his neighbours, at
Eardly, at Caversham, and at the Bishop's palace, that he either had
become or was becoming a Roman Catholic, under the priest's influence.
Mrs Yeld had even taken upon herself t