its shadow the colour of the flowers was quenched, and the music of the
birds rang false. Yet it wore the consecration of time and authority!
What if it were true?

"Mr. Lyndsay," said Denis at my elbow, "Aunt Eleanour has sent me to
fetch you to tea. Mr. Lyndsay, do you hear? Why do you look so strange?"

He caught my hand anxiously as he spoke, and by that little human touch
the spell was broken. The phantom vanished; and, looking into the
child's eyes, I felt it was a lie.




CHAPTER IV

CANON VERNADE'S GOSPEL


There was no Mrs. de Noël in the carriage when it returned; she had gone
to London to stay with Mrs. Donnithorne, whom Atherley spoke of as Aunt
Henrietta, and was not expected home till Wednesday.

"I am sorry," Lady Atherley observed, as we drove home through the dusk;
"I should like to have had her here when Uncle Augustus was with us. I
would have asked Mrs. Mostyn to dine with us, but I am not sure she and
Uncle Augustus would get on. When her sister, Mrs. Donnithorne, met
Uncle Augustus and his wife at lunch at our house once, she said she
thought no minister of the Gospel ought to allow his child to take part
in worldly amusements or ceremonials. It was very awkward, because Uncle