infernal, into which she might so easily slip. Ephraim said so, and he would never have proclaimed what he would not comply with unless its truth were very sure.

As for him, his self-despite was pain that rendered him oblivious of her real danger. Where was his boasted justice? Gone before a breath of jealousy. The neighbours had told him that she had smiled on Halsey, and the abuse of the Smithites, in which his mother indulged in the blindness of religious party-spirit, had fallen from his lips as soon as his own passion had been touched. Had his former candour, then, been the thing his mother called it, indifference to, rather than reverence for truth?

This was the travail of soul that Susannah could have as little thought of as he had of hers. It held Ephraim in its fangs for many days.