Tell me,"-- and she turned with a sudden pretty imperiousness to Lorimer, who started at her voice as a racehorse starts at its rider's touch,--"what person in Bosekop spoke of us ?" Lorimer was rather at a loss, inasmuch as no one in the small town had actually spoken of them, and Mr.Dyceworthy's remarks concerning those who were "ejected with good reason from respectable society," might not, after all, have applied to the Gueldmar family.

Indeed, it now seemed an absurd and improbable supposition.

Therefore he replied cautiously-- "The Reverend Mr.Dyceworthy, I think, has some knowledge of you.

Is he not a friend of yours ?" These simple words had a most unexpected effect.

Olaf Gueldmar sprang up from his seat flaming with wrath.