On passing through the music-room, Justin found Chelda alone there, playing dreamy waltzes with the intention of bringing Mr. Huntington to her side. She had made a mistake in diplomacy, or, rather, had overlooked a homely maxim, that circumstances alter cases. The flashing of brilliant conversational wit in the face of a rival usually brought the clergyman to her side, and anchored him there. This evening she had failed, owing to Derrice, who seemed to have fascinated, for the time, the man whom she considered to be her own property. As Chelda softly played, she meditated deeply. But for Derrice she would have received a proposal of marriage in the cupola, from the only person in the universe who had ever touched her cold heart. Derrice went much to the parsonage, she knew that. She had found a congenial spirit in Mrs. Negus, and ever since the day Mr. Huntington had come to French Cross and besought the interest of the ladies there in his former friend, Chelda had found him more difficult to manage, more unreliable and provoking. How strange it was that he clung so steadily to the rags of his religious life! Would she ever be able to detach them from his nervous grasp? She must make new plans. Her first move must be to make a friend of Derrice, and she gave Justin a gracious bow of welcome as he passed her. He paused on the threshold of the library. This room was more grateful to him than the drawing-room, with its many lights, and its gleam and glitter of gold. Here the tints were more subdued, more sombre, from the dull rich colouring of the tiers of handsomely bound books. Aurelia and Captain Veevers were deep in a game of draughts in a corner where Chelda had arranged them. Derrice, sitting bolt upright on a carved bench, was earnestly unfolding some tale to the clergyman, while Miss Gastonguay, buried in the deepest shadow of the room, pretended to be absorbed in a book. "Come here, deacon," she said, crooking her finger at Justin, "sit in that old cathedral chair and talk about that girl. She has settled her affair with me. You have schooled her admirably. I am marked, labelled, and sent to perdition. This is your last visit to this house." "Unless you repent,--'While the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.'" "Young man, don't jest. Tell me truly, do you believe that I am going to be condemned eternally?" "Certainly, if you do not believe in the Son of God." "Just what your wife says,--little witch,--and this is your Christianity, your loving-kindness." "Pardon me, it is not _my_ Christianity." "If there is one thing in the world that I hate more than another it is a Puritan," she said, shaking with a hastily evoked wrath.