When the Colonel grew thus figurative and poetical it may be surmised by anyone who has taken the trouble to study his mixed and somewhat worldly character that he was deeply moved. And he was moved; more so, indeed, than he had been since the death of his wife. Why? He would have found it hard to explain. On the face of it, the story was of a trivial order, and in some of its aspects rather absurd. Two young people who happened to be congenial, but one of whom was engaged, chance to be thrown together for a couple of months in a country house. Although there is some gossip, nothing at all occurs between them beyond a little perfectly natural flirtation. The young man’s father, hearing the gossip, speaks to the young lady in order that she may take steps to protect herself and his son against surmise and misinterpretation. Thereupon a sudden flood of light breaks upon her soul, by which she sees that she is really attached to the young man, and being a woman of unusual character, or perhaps absurdly averse to lying even upon such a subject, in answer to a question admits that this is so, and that she very properly intends to go away. Could anything be more commonplace, more in the natural order of events? Why, then, was he moved? Oh! it was that woman’s face and eyes. Old as he might be, he felt jealous of his son; jealous to think that for him such a woman could wear this countenance of wonderful and thrilling woe. What was there in Morris that it should have called forth this depth of passion undefiled? Now, if there were no Mary—but there was a Mary, it was folly to pursue such a line of thought. From sympathy for Stella, which was deep and genuine, to anger with his son proved to the Colonel an easy step. Morris was that worst of sinners, a hypocrite. Morris, being engaged to one woman, had taken advantage of her absence deliberately to involve the affections of another, or, at any rate, caused her considerable inconvenience. He was wroth with Morris, and what was more, before he grew an hour older he would let him have a piece of his mind. He found the sinner in his workshop, the chapel, making mathematical calculations, the very sight of which added to his father’s indignation. The man, he reflected to himself, who under these circumstances could indulge an abnormal talent for mathematics, especially on Sunday, must be a cold-blooded brute. He entered the place slamming the door behind him; and Morris looking up noted with alarm, for he hated rows, that there was war in his eye. “Won’t you take a chair, father?” he said. “No, thank you; I would rather say what I have to say standing.” “What is the matter?” “The matter is, sir, that I find that by your attentions you have made that poor girl, Miss Fregelius, while she was a guest in my house, the object of slander and scandal to every ill-natured gossip in the three parishes.” Morris’s quiet, thoughtful eyes flashed in an ominous and unusual manner.