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to fire off against the _bete noir_.
I forgot to tell you that Major Keene is much addicted to play, and,
besides, is intimate with the Vicomte de Chateaumesnil. _Noscitur a
sociis._ The reverend man was an indifferent classic, but he had a way
of flashing scraps out of grammars and _Analecta Minora_ before women
and others unlikely to be down upon him, as if they were quotations from
some recondite author.
You can not mean that cripple who is drawn about in a wheelchair?
Cecil asked. We saw him today, only for a moment, for he drew his
cloak over his face as we passed. I never saw such a melancholy wreck,
and I pitied him so much that I fear he will haunt me.
Far deeper would have been the compassion had she guessed at the pang
that shot straight to Armand's heart as he veiled his blasted features
and haggard eyes, feeling bitterly that such as he were not worthy to
look upon her in the glory of her brilliant beauty.
A notorious atheist and profligate, was the reply. We can not regard
his sore affliction in any other light than a judgmenta manifest
judgment, dear Miss Tresilyan.
There was grave disapproval and just a shade of contempt in the face of
one of his hearers as she said, The hand of God is laid so heavily
there that man may surely forbear him. But Mrs. Danvers struck in to
her favorite's rescue, rejoicing in an opportunity of displaying her
partisanship.
A judgment, of course. It would be sinful to doubt it. Besides, do not
_others_ suffer? (She cast up her eyes here pointedly, as though she
said, There may be more perfect saints, but if you want a fair specimen
of the fine old English martyr_me voici_.) Cecil, my love, I wonder
you did not perceive Major Keene's true character at once. You were
talking to him a good deal the other day.
He did not favor me with any remarkably heretical opinions, Miss
Tresilyan replied, carelessly. Perhaps they have been exaggerated. At
all events, he is not likely to do us much harm. Don't you think _we_
are safe, Bessie? Dick does not care much for play; and his ideas on
religious subjects are so very simple that it would be hard to unsettle
them.
Clearly she thought the topic was exhausted, but it had a strange
fascination for Mr. Fullarton. One of the many goodnatured people, who
especially abound in those semiEnglish Continental towns, had been kind
enough to quote or misquote to him a remark of Royston's about that
sermon; and on this topic the chaplain was very vulnerable. He would
have forgiven a real substantial injury far sooner than a depreciation
of his discourses.
Was he one whit weaker or more susceptible than his fellows? I think
not. All the philosophy on earth will not teach us to endure without

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