Christian looked at her husband many times, stealthily, whenever he did not notice her.  She liked to look at him.  She liked to judge his face, not with the expression it wore toward herself; that she knew well—­alas! too well; but as it was when turned toward other people, interested in them and in the ordinary duties of life, which sometimes, when absorbed in a passionate love, a man lets slip for the time.  Now she saw him as he was in reality, the head of his family, the master of his college, the center of a circle of friends; doing his work in the world as a man ought to do it, and as a woman dearly loves to see him do it.  Christian’s eye brightened, and a faint warmth seemed creeping into her dull, deadened heart.

While she was thinking thus, and wondering if it were real, her heart suddenly stopped still.

It was only at the sound of a name, repeated in idle conversation by two ladies behind her.

“Edwin Uniacke!  Yes, it is quite true.  My husband was speaking of it only this morning.  He is Sir Edwin Uniacke now, with a large fortune besides.”

“He didn’t deserve it.  If ever there was an utter scapegrace, it was he.  He broke his poor mother’s heart; she died during that affair.  The dean must have known all about it?”

“Yes, but he and the master kept it very much to themselves.  My husband hates talking; and as for Dr. Grey—­”

“The dean paid me a long visit this morning, Mrs. Brereton,” suddenly interrupted Dr. Grey.  “We were congratulating ourselves on our prospects.  We think there are one or two men who will do Saint Bede’s great credit next year.”

“That is well.  But my husband says it will be long before we get a man like one whom I was just speaking of—­Mr. Uniacke—­Sir Edwin he is now.  He has succeeded to the baronetcy.  Of course you have heard of this?”

“I have,” briefly answered Dr. Grey.

And the dean’s wife, who had all the love of talking which the dean had not, mingled with a little nettled sense of balked curiosity, then turned to Mrs. Grey.

“You must have heard of that young man, and the scandal about him; it was only a year ago that he was rusticated.  Such a pity!  He was a most clever fellow—­good at every thing.  And quite a genius for music.  To hear him sing and play was delightful!  And yet he was such a scamp—­a downright villain.”

“My dear Mrs. Brereton,” said Dr. Grey, “nobody is quite a villain at twenty.  And if he were, don’t you think that the less we talk about villains the better?”

So the conversation dropped—­dropped as things do drop every day, under the smooth surface of society, which handles so lightly edged tools, and treads so gaily upon bomb-shells, with the fuses just taken out in time.

“I am very tired,” said Mrs. Grey, while Dr. Grey was seeing the last of the visitors to their carriage.  “I think I will go at once to my own room”.