Guenllian was not reassured. The Countess was one of those soft, languid, placid, India-rubber women who would lay aside a novel deliberately if they knew that their children were in danger of drowning. She was not fit to bring up Guenllian’s darling! She pleaded with the Earl piteously to allow her to remain with the child. She was sure the old Countess would have wished it. The Earl inquired if she had made any actual promise to this effect. In so many words, Guenllian could not say that she had: but that the tacit understanding had existed she knew full well. And she had distinctly promised that Roger should read constantly and diligently in the French Bible. The Earl assured her with an insinuating smile that there was not the least difficulty about that. He had a French Bible, and read it. Just then, Lollardism was walking in silver slippers, and the Bible was ranked among fashionable literature. Guenllian knew well that the reading with and without her would be two very different things. There would be all the difference in them between a living man and an automaton. But she was powerless. The matter was out of her hands. She must let her darling go. She lifted up her soul as she turned away. "Lord, they cannot bar Thee out of Arundel Castle! go with this child of many prayers! Teach him Thyself, and then he will be taught: save him, and he will be saved! Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He,—in heaven and in the earth and in the sea, and in all deep places. Let them curse, but bless Thou!" And so, having touched the hem of Christ’s garment, Guenllian went in peace. *CHAPTER IV.* *WHAT CAME OF SELF-WILL.* "Are not the worst things that befal us here, That seem devoid of meaning, or contain The least of love and beauty, those from which The heavenly Alchemist extracts the gold That makes us rich?" —REV. HORATIUS BONAR.