nal that followed on his movement; as the air lightened
around them she fancied his countenance distorted by suffering, and his
averted eyes spoke of his shame and contrition.

"My daughter," he said at length, "fear what you will but never again
fear me. You witness my remorse, my tears--yes, behold, my
daughter--and you know, you tell yourself that I cannot, will not harm
you--nor any woman. But now you would hear what I would say, because
you must not refuse. You have left our Holy Catholic communion, you
are no longer daughter of the true Church, is it not so, my daughter?"

An old habit asserting itself, Pauline automatically answered; "_Oui,
mon pere._"

"You have gone on the stage, you have developed into a brilliant but
wayward coquette; you have for your friend a woman who has left her
husband and thinks about marrying another. Is this not so, my
daughter?"

And again, despite her experience of his singular lapse from conduct,
Pauline's lips answered: "Oui, mon pere."

"Worst of all, you have set yourself to fascinate and wound this young
man, this stranger among us, and you are leading him on to think of you
night and day, I suppose, as I do!"

"_Mon pere_--do not confess it!"

"Why not? You will not use your knowledge of my secret since you will
not be believed. I--thanks to my training and the example of my
glorious Church--can choke, can bridle, can conceal this passion--but
not so this other. Can you deny that you have been with him,
encouraged him?"

Pauline would have answered hotly, her rudimentary fear of the _cure_
disappearing before the mention of Ringfield, when her eyes fell upon a
book that lay at the foot of the ladder, a small green book that she
knew well by sight, having read in it with Edmund Crabbe years before,
when he was known as "Mr. Hawtree" and had been her lover. The book
was a collection of poems by Edwin Arnold, and back into her memory
stole those passionate lines:--

The one prize I have longed for
Was once to find the goal of those dear lips;
Then I could rest, not else; but had you frowned
And bade me go, and barred your door upon me,
Oh, Sweet! I think I should have come with lamps
And axes, and have stolen you like gold!

She stood staring at the cover, for upon it lay three or four large
spreading dark patches; were these wet spots caused by the snow? Her
eyes, then traversing the ladder, noticed footprints, and cakes of
blackened snow