"That's the case," he answered, "and, of course," he added in a
mollifying tone, "being my sister as well as Christine's, there's no
reason why you shouldn't be alone with me in the room a few moments.
Is there now?" he added to Christine.

The acting was clever enough, but not quite convincing, and Christine was
too excited to respond to his blarney.

"He can't be your real husband," said Sophie, hardly above a whisper.
"The Cure didn't marry you, did he?" She looked at Ferrol doubtfully.

"Well, no," he said; "we were married over in Upper Canada."

"By a Protestant?" asked Sophie.

Christine interrrupted. "What's that to you? I hope I'll never see your
face again while I live. I want to be alone with my husband, and your
husband wants to be alone with his wife: won't you oblige us and him--
Hein?"

Sophie gave Ferrol a look which haunted him while he lived. One idle
afternoon he had sowed the seeds of a little storm in the heart of a
woman, and a whirlwind was driving through her life to parch and make
desolate the green fields of her youth and womanhood. He had loitered
and dallied without motive; but the idle and unmeaning sinner is the most
dangerous to others and to himself, and he realised it at that moment,
so far as it was in him to realise anything of the kind.

Sophie's figure as it left the room had that drooping, beaten look which