impressionable sort of girl, and when once I had obtained an
entrance into her mind I found it the easiest thing in the world to
dominate her thoughts. Though she stood, and sat, and knelt, and
curtseyed, and articulated words, her thoughts were entirely
absorbed in me. I crowded out the Magnificat with a picture of
Zaluski and Gertrude Morley. I led her through more terrible future
possibilities in the second lesson than would be required for a
three-volume novel. I entirely eclipsed the collects with
reflections on unhappy marriages; took her off via Russia and
Nihilism in the State prayers, and by the time we arrived at St.
Chrysostom had become so powerful that I had worked her mind into
exactly the condition I desired.

The congregation rose. Lena Houghton, still dominated by me, knelt
longer than the rest, but at last she got up and walked down the
aisle, and I felt a great sense of relief and satisfaction. We were
out in the open air once more, and I had triumphed; I was quite sure
that she would tell the first person she met, for, as I have said
before, she was entirely taken up with me, and to have kept me to
herself would have required far more strength and unselfishness than
she at that moment possessed. She walked slowly through the
churchyard, feeling much pleased to see that the curate had just
left the vestry door, and that in a few moments their paths must
converge.

Mr. Blackthorne had only been ordained three or four years, and was
a little younger, and much less experienced in the ways of the
world, than Sigismund Zaluski. He was a good well-meaning fellow, a
little narrow, a little prejudiced, a little spoiled by the devotion
of the district visitors and Sunday School teachers; but he was