"I beg your pardon," said Mr Beverley. "I was confounded by what I saw. Good heavens! it is not possible I can deceive myself. I understand your alarm. I am not going to make a disturbance and break up your party. I can wait," the Archdeacon said, drawing a rapid forcible breath. "Miss Marjoribanks, do you know who that man is?" "Oh, yes," said Lucilla, softening into a smile. "Perfectly, I assure you. He is one of papa's guests, and very much respected in Carlingford; and he is one of my--very particular friends," Miss Marjoribanks added. She laughed as she spoke, a kind of laugh which is only appropriate to one subject, and which is as good, any day, as a confession; and the flush was so obliging as to return at that moment to her ingenuous countenance. "We have known each other a long time," Lucilla went on after that pretty pause; and then she raised her confiding eyes, which had been cast down, once more to the Archdeacon's face. "You can't think how nice he is, Mr Beverley," said Miss Marjoribanks. She clasped her hands together, just for a moment, as she did so, with an eloquent meaning which it was impossible to mistake. The Archdeacon, for his part, gazed at her like a man in a dream. Whether it was true--or whether he was being made a fool of more completely than ever man before was--or whether he was the victim of an optical or some other kind of delusion,--the poor man could not tell. He was utterly stricken dumb, and did not know what to say. He accepted the soup humbly, which Thomas set before him, though it was a white soup, an effeminate dish, which went utterly in the face of his principles. And then he looked at the innocent young creature at his side in that flutter of happy confusion. It was a terrible position for the Broad-Churchman. After such a tacit confession he could not spring from his seat and hurl the impostor out of the room, as in the first place he had a mind to do. On the contrary, it was with a voice trembling with emotion that he spoke. "My dear Miss Marjoribanks," said the Archdeacon, "I am struck dumb by what you tell me. Good heavens! that it should have come to this; and yet I should be neglecting my duty if I kept silent. You do not--you cannot know who he is."