"And, besides," added a new and gushing voice, "it is so beautifully, suggestively true. We have the light, we can light them." "Oh! but that _is_ such a bother," came Laila Bonaventura's full-throated tones. "I hate having to see things I don't care to see. I much prefer to have my own candle, don't you?" She had been finding it dull work waiting for her guardian's return from the dining room, even though Vincent had, now and again, found opportunity for a word or look. He took advantage of one now to say, "It will be pleasanter by and by, won't it? We must settle the time before you leave." "What time?" asked Muriel Smith, who happened to overhear his undertone. She had been vaguely curious at their apparent avoidance of each other, their occasional lapses into familiarity, ever since she had challenged them at the Viceroy's party. "Time!" echoed Vincent, coolly. "Of that new song, of course. Come in, Miss Bonaventura, let us decide about it." The girl swept up her long lashes solemnly. "I should think a twelve beat would be best, really. It is safer when there are so many accidental notes." His face, as he led the way to the piano, was a study. If she had lived her life in a vaudeville at the _Folies Bergères_ she could scarcely have been more at home in intrigue, yet her absolute sincerity and unconsciousness of wrongdoing was as palpable. On the whole, he felt vexed; the more so because the vaudeville dialogue proved unnecessary, since a sudden concentration of the party to hear the verdict of the Adullamites, who at that moment came out of the dining room, would have given them ample time for more dignified conversation. Erda was in the front rank of the eager little crowd, her hopes, her enthusiasms, heightened by the deliberate choice she had just made, when Dr. Campbell, as the recognized head, began to speak. They had come unanimously to the conclusion, he said, that absolute revolt at this late hour would be unwise. Whether Father Ninian Bruce was justified, by the circumstances, in his adverse report was another matter. Personally he denied it; nor did he propose that they should sit down quietly under the interference. They were only forbidden to preach in Eshwara. Therefore they had come, again unanimously, to the resolution of leaving Eshwara for the time in a body. It would be a solemn protest; and they could thus render both to Cæsar and to God, since they could preach at other pilgrim stations on the road. It would be a noble protest which was certain of proving blessed. The words roused no little enthusiasm, mingled with undoubted relief in most cases; but Erda, standing beside her cousin, said in an undertone, "Did you assent to that, David?"