"God Save the Queen" from the strength of the company, in which the
hoarse bass of the transplanted cockney, Enderby, the Hawthorne
butcher, was paramount.

Crabbe was waiting for Pauline and gave her his arm down from the
platform.

"Well," said he, openly displaying his admiration, "you gave us a
Gregorian Grand Duchess to-night, but I, for one, will not quarrel with
you for that. All the old time vivacity and charm were there, I assure
you, and I do not find as much alteration in your style and appearance
as I expected from hearing that you had joined the Methodists!"

Pauline glanced quickly from Crabbe to Ringfield; she foresaw an open
and unseemly quarrel, and as one could never tell when Crabbe was
sober, she rather feared than welcomed the bright audacity of his
manner, the amiable ease with which he held the situation. In the
presence of the guide Ringfield always lost his austere calm; his
manners underwent deterioration and he stood now with a rigid
_gaucherie_ spoiling his fine presence, and a pitiful nervousness
prompting him to utter and do the wrong thing.

"I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Methodists all the same,
you know," continued Crabbe, giving her arm a final and caressing pat
as he released her, "but still I've seen better chairmen." Crabbe was
now leaning lazily against the wall and occasionally moved his arm
across Miss Clairville's back, as if he might at any moment fold it
around her waist as he had done outside the barn.

"Your French needs polishing up a bit. How would a course at one of
our theological colleges down here do for you? It's a pity you
couldn't have six months even at Laval--but, of course, Sabrevois and
the long procession of colporteurs is more in your line. But in spite
of such small defects you remain a man of cheerful yesterdays, and we
may presume--equally confident tomorrows, and therefore, to be envied."

The three stood comparatively alone, the people having passed out and
Poussette and Enderby talking apart in a corner. Every vestige of
healthy colour fled from the minister's face, and his hands clasped and
unclasped with peculiar and unnatural tension. In his brain a prayer
had formed. "My Dear God--" he kept saying to himself--"my Dear
God--help me from myself! Protect me now lest I offend Thee, and be
forever cast from Thy Holy Presence. Remove this temptation from me,
or give me strength to meet it and endure, and so rise triumphant."