It was a source of secret regret to the Duchess that Hero did not share her own old-fashioned prejudice against the Catholic practices and teachings of Mr. Grimes and his Vicar. Hero had an æsthetic appreciation of the ritual of St. Jermyn’s, with its banners and processions, its incense and its worship of the consecrated elements, and this led her to listen with outward tolerance to the utterances of Dr. Coles and his disciple on the subject of the Catholic doctrines which lay behind these outward symbols. But the native strength of her mind forbade her to make that surrender of her own judgment to priestly authority which is the real test of the Catholic temper. Perhaps this obstinacy was due more largely than she suspected to the personal antipathy inspired in her by the Rev. Aloysius. A young woman’s religion is generally coloured by her personal relations with the man who is her religious teacher; and Hero secretly despised Mr. Grimes as a man, though she tried to respect him as a clergyman. A suggestion from the curate that Miss Vanbrugh would derive spiritual benefit from a visit to his confessional had been so discouragingly received that he never ventured to renew it. The curate did not help himself in Hero’s eyes by his rather too evident admiration of her as a woman. If he had not been vowed to celibacy it might have been supposed that he was courting her; and even as it was, there were jealous eyes, belonging to older and plainer women in the St. Jermyn’s flock, which watched him with distrust, and jealous minds which dwelt upon the fact that Anglican vows of celibacy are a poor security. Perhaps it is not doing much injustice to Mr. Grimes to suppose that there were moments when he himself recollected with some satisfaction that in his Church such vows resemble the treaties of civilized Powers, and are liable to be repudiated the moment they become inconvenient. Be that as it may, it is certain that Hero Vanbrugh was heart-whole as far as her clerical admirer was concerned. Lord Alistair Stuart she had never met, her intimacy at Colonsay House dating since the separation due to Molly Finucane. She was familiar with Lord Alistair’s story, in so far as it had become a social scandal, but this was the first time his mother had pronounced Alistair’s name in her presence, and her interest was strongly roused. She gave the Duchess a nod of sympathy and understanding. “I saw what had happened in the papers. I was very sorry. It must have been a great blow to you and to the Duke.” “It is a crushing blow,” the mother answered. “Not only in itself, but because of what lies behind it. My boy would never have come to this if he had not fallen under the influence of that dreadful woman.”