poisoned her mother's influence over this dangerously pretty girl, that
she would have believed his word at any time rather than that mother's.
Well, he read other than French novels; Charles Reade, for instance, and
some of the more recent authors fashionable in certain circles. It is
true that Gracie was not acquainted with them, that her father would not
allow a copy of their books to come freely into his home, and Gracie was
much too honorable to read them in private. But it is also true that
while professing to admire this trait in her, as charming in a young
daughter, the professor had also, pityingly and gently, told this young
daughter that these things were her father's concessions to the narrow
age and trammelled profession to which he belonged; that the fact was,
free thought was discouraged, because there was that in every church
which would not bear its light; that her wise father was one of a
hundred in recognizing this, and trying to shield her while she was
young.

You are also to remember that she _was_ young, and therefore forgive her
that she did not detect the contradictory sophistry in the professor's
words. He really understood how to sugar-coat poison as well as any man
of his stamp could.




CHAPTER XVI.

"HERE WAS HIS OPPORTUNITY."


But the question which would keep forcing itself on Gracie Dennis was