Miss Blake was nettled. Her manner froze. "I see what it is, Sir Karl; you and your wife are so displeased with me that I feel my presence in your house is no longer welcome. As soon as I can make arrangements I will quit it--thanking you both for your hospitality." She paused. Sir Karl paused too. Perhaps she had a faint expectation that he would hasten to refute the decision, and request her to stay on. But he did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he, in a word or two of politeness, acquiesced in the proposal of departure, as though it admitted of no question. "I should not have trespassed on you so long--in fact, I should not have stayed at all after your first return here with Lady Andinnian, but for St. Jerome's," she rejoined, her temper getting up again, while there ran in her mind an undercurrent of thought, as to whether she could find suitable lodgings in Foxwood. "You will not have to regret that, in leaving," he observed. "I am about to do away with St. Jerome's." "To do away with St. Jerome's!" "In a week's time from this it will be shut up, and all the nonsense within its walls cleared away." "The nonsense!" shrieked Miss Blake. "Why you cannot call it sense--or religion either. To tell you the truth, Miss Blake, the place has been an offence to me for some time. It has caused a scandal--" "For shame, Sir Karl Andinnian! Scandal, indeed!" "And this little bit of fresh scandal that has arisen now, people don't like at all," quietly persisted Sir Karl. "Neither do I. So, to prevent the bishop coming down upon us here, Miss Blake, I close the place." Miss Blake compressed her lips. She could have struck him as he stood. "What do you mean by a 'fresh' scandal, pray?" "Well, the story runs that Mr. Cattacomb was seen to kiss one of the young ladies in the vestry." Miss Blake started, Miss Blake shrieked, Miss Blake wondered that the very ceiling did not drop down upon the bold false tongue. To do her justice, she believed St. Jerome's pastor was by far too holy a man for any wickedness of the sort. Not to speak of restraining prudence. "Sir Karl, may you be forgiven! Where do you expect to go to when you die?" "To the heaven, I hope, that our merciful God has provided for us," he answered, meeting the query solemnly and with some emotion. "Some of those dearer to me than life have gone on thither to wait for me." At which Miss Blake drew up her pious head, and intimated that she feared it might be another kind of place, unless he should mend his manners. And Sir Karl closed the interview, leaving her to understand that she had received her congé.