to retain sufficient resolution for a change of mind.

The sermon ended, the minister wiped his steaming face and
turned down his cuffs, and nods and sagacious glances went
round. Yet many, even of those who had presumably passed the
same ordeal with credit, exhibited gentler judgment than the
preacher's on a tergiversation of which they had probably
recognized some germ in their own bosoms when in the lady's
situation.

For Somerset there was but one scene: the imagined scene of
the girl herself as she sat alone in the vestry. The fervent
congregation rose to sing again, and then Somerset heard a
slight noise on his left hand which caused him to turn his
head. The brougham, which had retired into the field to wait,
was back again at the door: the subject of his rumination
came out from the chapel--not in her mystic robe of white, but
dressed in ordinary fashionable costume--followed as before by
the attendant with other articles of clothing on her arm,
including the white gown. Somerset fancied that the younger
woman was drying her eyes with her handkerchief, but there was
not much time to see: they quickly entered the carriage, and
it moved on. Then a cat suddenly mewed, and he saw a white
Persian standing forlorn where the carriage had been. The
door was opened, the cat taken in, and the carriage drove
away.

The stranger's girlish form stamped itself deeply on
Somerset's soul. He strolled on his way quite oblivious to
the fact that the moon had just risen, and that the landscape