Breathless, the good people in the front rows stared. Movement was impossible, every sense seemed suspended, everything but the sensation of amazement. Mrs. Carter looked in a frightened way at her husband and caught the twinkle in Colonel Denbigh’s eye. Then she saw her rector mop his forehead with his handkerchief, and she raised her shamed eyes to the stage. Fanchon was pirouetting on one toe! Applause had started in the back rows, among the black sheep, and was running down the side aisles like a prairie-fire when Mr. Carter abruptly rose. “Excuse me,” he said roughly to Colonel Denbigh as he clambered over him. “I--I’ve forgotten something!” Mrs. Carter half rose and then sank back, pulled down by Emily, but she seemed to hear, through the spluttering applause, her husband’s crashing exit. It might be said that Mr. Carter had the effect of a stone thrown from an ancient catapult, he went with such bounds and rushes. For a stout man his performance was little short of miraculous. He covered the distance to his own door in ten minutes, got out his latch-key, found the key-hole unerringly in the dark, went in, and banged the door to with a violence that made the ornaments on the hall mantel rattle. The hall was vacant, but he saw a stream of light coming out of the library, and headed violently for it. William was alone, huddled in an easy chair, smoking and reading. Mr. Carter came in and shut the door. Then he advanced on his son with a face of thunder. “William Henry Carter,” said he, “you’ve married a dancer--a French dancer!” William, overtaken by the unexpected, laid down his book and stared. But his father only roared the louder. He seemed to think that his son had grown suddenly deaf. “Do you hear me, sir?” he bellowed fiercely. “You’ve married a--a dyed-in-the-wool ballet-dancer!” VIII IT was an hour later when Miranda, looking very dark and showing the whites of her eyes to an alarming extent, opened the front door for Mrs. Carter, Emily and Leigh. “Mist’ Carter says, please, ma’am, yo’ come inter de libr’ry,” said the colored servitress in a sympathetic undertone. Mrs. Carter cast an apprehensive look at her daughter. “I guess you two had better go up-stairs,” she whispered. Emily nodded, and started for the staircase, but Mr. Carter shouted from the library: “I hear you-all out there--come in here!” They went. Leigh, having forgotten to put down Fanchon’s extra wraps, brought up the rear, his flushed face just appearing above a mass of chiffon, lace and fur. Mr. Carter, striding up and down the room alone, caught sight of his youngest son first. “Put down those things!” he shouted. “You look like a dromedary.” Leigh obeyed, but he straightened himself and stood, sullenly, his eyes on the ground. His father took no further notice of him. “I’d like to know if any of you knew what that girl was going to do to-night?” he demanded fiercely. Mrs. Carter sank weakly into the nearest chair.