start. Then they turned and looked at each other with anxious inquiry
and with much concern, for they recognized for the first time that
their voices had been loud. The older man stepped quickly across the
floor, but before he reached the middle of the room the door opened
from the outside, and his daughter stood in the door-way, with her
head held down and her eyes looking at the floor.

"Ellen!" exclaimed the father, in a voice of pain and the deepest
pity.

The girl moved toward the place from where his voice came, without
raising her eyes, and when she reached him put her arms about him and
hid her face on his shoulder. She moved as though she were tired, as
though she were exhausted by some heavy work.

"My child," said the bishop, gently, "were you listening?" There was
no reproach in his voice; it was simply full of pity and concern.

"I thought," whispered the girl, brokenly, "that he would be
frightened; I wanted to hear what he would say. I thought I could
laugh at him for it afterward. I did it for a joke. I thought--" She
stopped with a little gasping sob that she tried to hide, and for a
moment held herself erect and then sank back again into her father's
arms with her head upon his breast.

Latimer started forward, holding out his arms to her. "Ellen," he
said, "surely, Ellen, you are not against me. You see how preposterous
it is, how unjust it is to me. You cannot mean--"

The girl raised her head and shrugged her shoulders slightly as though