'Well!--you'll compete with Renan. He made a satire out of it. His priest
is a moral gentleman who won't kill anybody. But the populace soon settle
that. They knock him on the head, as a disturber of religion.'

'I had forgotten--' said Mrs. Burgoyne absently.

'But you didn't like it, Eleanor--my little piece!' said Manisty, after a
pause. 'So don't pretend!'

She roused herself at once, and began to talk with her usual eagerness and
sympathy. It was a repetition of the scene before dinner. Only this time
her effect was not so great. Manisty's depression did not yield.

Presently, however, he looked down upon her. In the kind, concealing
moonlight she was all grace and charm. The man's easy tenderness awoke.

'Eleanor--this air is too keen for that thin dress.'

And stooping over her he took her cloak from her arm, and wrapped it about
her.

'You lent it to Miss Foster'--he said, surveying her. 'It became her--but
it knows its mistress!'

The colour mounted an instant in her cheek. Then she moved further away
from him.

'Have you discovered yet'--she said--'that that girl is extraordinarily
handsome?'