Tom Temple found himself in the midst of a dilemma. On the one hand was this silent, swarthy-face girl who looked as unapproachable as a Minerva; on the other, my Lord of Pembroke, ready to explode at the slightest opposition. “I accept your mandate, my lord.” “Forward, then, sainted sir; I am the church militant to support the conversion.” Tom Temple plucked up his impertinence, and approached Barbara with an air of grim solemnity. All eyes were turned in her direction. She found herself the cynosure of this mocking, sneering, mischief-loving crowd. “My daughter, I am authorized by his Majesty, Pope of Whitehall, and by my Lord Cardinal Pembroke, here, to initiate you into the one true church. Are you, my daughter, in a fit and ready state to be converted?” Barbara looked the young man straight in the face and said nothing. “Have you no answer for me, my child?” My Lord of Pembroke gave him a push from behind. “To it, Tom, or I’ll convert her myself!” “My Lord Cardinal, I am ready to abdicate in your favor.” “Sophist! Kiss her, and have done.” Tom Temple looked at Barbara and found his expiring impudence unequal to the task. A breeze of cynical laughter swept the room. The three girls had left the card-table, and were standing huddled together, giggling and glancing from Barbara to the gentlemen. Hortense and Anne Purcell had drawn aside toward the harpsichord, while the sentimental widow seemed scared. “The church militant must intervene!” My Lord of Pembroke jostled the mock churchman aside and faced Barbara. She had risen and was standing at her full height, an angry color flooding into her face. The peer and the lady looked each other in the eyes. The man’s cynical yet malicious stare humiliated her, despite her wrath and her defiance. Her glance travelled over the faces that seemed to fill the room. Nowhere did she find a glimmer of pity or resentment. She was just a silly, prudish girl to them; a sulky child to be teased; a thing that piqued their cynical curiosity. My Lord of Pembroke made her a curt bow. “You will permit me to receive you into the bosom of our church,” he said. She flashed a fierce stare at him, and then drew back close to the window. It was then that her eyes met the eyes of some one in the room, some one who had been standing in the background, and who was watching her with intense earnestness. She recognized John Gore. A rush of appeal and of chivalrous sympathy seemed to leap from face to face. My Lord of Pembroke advanced a step. There was something satanic about his eyes. “Come, little simpleton.” He stretched out an arm, and caught her wrist roughly. But she twisted it free. “Gently, my wild filly; we must break you to harness. Come—now—” He was shouldered aside abruptly with a vigor that set the whole room gaping at the thunderclap that would follow. A shortish, sturdy man with a brown, imperturbable face had established himself calmly between my lord and Barbara Purcell.