"I owe you a thousand apologies," he said, "for staying such an unwarrantable time, and quite as many thanks for the pleasantest two hours I have spent in Dorade. Don't think I would detain you one moment from Mr. Fullarton and your devotional exercises. You know--no, you _don't_ know--the verse in the ballad:
'Amundeville may be lord by day, But the monk is lord by night; Nor wine nor wassail would stir a vassal To question that friar's right.'"
He went away then without another word beyond the ordinary adieu. Royston had a way of repeating poetry peculiar to himself--rather monotonous, perhaps, but effective from the depth and volume of his voice. You gained in rhythm what you lost in rhyme. The sound seemed to linger in their ears after he had closed the door.
As the echo of the firm, strong footstep died away, a virtuous indignation possessed the broad visage of the divine.
"It is like Major Keene," said he, "to select as his text-book the most godless work of the satanic school; but I should have thought that even he would have paused before venturing, in this presence, on a quotation from _Don Juan_."
At that awful word Mrs. Danvers gave a little shriek as if "a bee had stung her newly." Had she been a Catholic she would have crossed herself an indefinite number of times: will you be good enough to imagine her protracted look of holy horror? Cecil's eyes were glittering with scornful humor as she answered, very demurely, "What an advantage it is to be a large, general reader! It enables one to impart so much information. Now Bessie and I should never have guessed where those lines came from if you had not enlightened us. They seemed harmless enough in themselves, and Major Keene was considerate enough to leave us in our ignorance. So Byron comes within the scope of your studies, Mr. Fullarton. I thought you seldom indulged in such secular authors?" The chaplain was quite right in making his reply inaudible: it would have been difficult to find a perfectly satisfactory one. However, the hour was late enough to excuse his beginning the reading without farther delay. It was not a success. There was a stoppage somewhere in the current of his mellifluous eloquence; and the exposition was concluded so soon, and indeed abruptly, that Mrs. Danvers retired to rest with a feeling of disappointment and inanition, such as one may have experienced when, expecting a "sit-down" supper, we are obliged to content ourselves with a meagrely-furnished _buffet_. For some minutes after Mr. Fullarton had departed Miss Tresilyan sat silent, leaning her head upon her hand. At last she said, "Bessie, dear, you know I would not interfere with your comforts or your arrangements for the world; but, the next time you wish to have a repetition of this, would you be so very good as to tell me beforehand? I think I shall spend that evening with Fanny Molyneux. I do not quite like it, and I am sure it does me no real good."