Mrs. Danvers's sympathetic groan was promptly at the service of the speaker; fortunately, turning to thank her for it by a look, he missed detecting her pupil's smile. She could fancy so well Fanny's little _moue_, combining amusement, vexation, and impertinence, while undergoing the ecclesiastical censure. "You must be merciful to Mrs. Molyneux," she remarked, with a demure gravity that did her credit under the circumstances. "She is my greatest friend, you know. When a wife is so very fond of her husband, surely there is some excuse for her adopting his prejudices for and against people?" The pastor brightened up suddenly: he had just recollected another fact to fire off against the _bete noir_. "I forgot to tell you that Major Keene is much addicted to play, and, besides, is intimate with the Vicomte de Chateaumesnil. _Noscitur a sociis._" The reverend man was an indifferent classic, but he had a way of flashing scraps out of grammars and _Analecta Minora_ before women and others unlikely to be down upon him, as if they were quotations from some recondite author. "You can not mean that cripple who is drawn about in a wheel-chair?" Cecil asked. "We saw him to-day, only for a moment, for he drew his cloak over his face as we passed. I never saw such a melancholy wreck, and I pitied him so much that I fear he will haunt me." Far deeper would have been the compassion had she guessed at the pang that shot straight to Armand's heart as he veiled his blasted features and haggard eyes, feeling bitterly that such as he were not worthy to look upon her in the glory of her brilliant beauty. "A notorious atheist and profligate," was the reply. "We can not regard his sore affliction in any other light than a judgment--a manifest judgment, dear Miss Tresilyan." There was grave disapproval and just a shade of contempt in the face of one of his hearers as she said, "The hand of God is laid so heavily there that man may surely forbear him." But Mrs. Danvers struck in to her favorite's rescue, rejoicing in an opportunity of displaying her partisanship. "A judgment, of course. It would be sinful to doubt it. Besides, do not _others_ suffer?" (She cast up her eyes here pointedly, as though she said, "There may be more perfect saints, but if you want a fair specimen of the fine old English martyr--_me voici_.") "Cecil, my love, I wonder you did not perceive Major Keene's true character at once. You were talking to him a good deal the other day." "He did not favor me with any remarkably heretical opinions," Miss Tresilyan replied, carelessly. "Perhaps they have been exaggerated. At all events, he is not likely to do us much harm. Don't you think _we_ are safe, Bessie? Dick does not care much for play; and his ideas on religious subjects are so very simple that it would be hard to unsettle them."