‘It is more than a suspicion,’ said Dorothea; and plainly now, while open to the seductions of any pleasing infidel testimony, her nose in repugnance convicted him absolutely.

Virginia’s nose was lowered a few inches; it inhaled and stopped midway.  ’You must be mistaken, dear.  He never . . . ’

‘But are you insensible to the . . .’  Dorothea’s eyelids fainted.

Virginia dismissed the forlornest of efforts at incredulity.  A whiff of Tasso had smitten her.  ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed and fell away.  ’Is it Tasso!  How was it you noticed nothing before undressing, dear?’

’Thinking of what we have gone through to-night!  I forgot him.  At last the very strange . . .  The like of it I have not ever! . . .  And upon that thick coat!  And, dear, it is late.  We are in the morning hours.’

‘But, my dear-Oh, dear, what is to be done with him?’

That was the crucial point for discussion.  They had no servant to give them aid; Manton, they could not dream of disturbing.  And Tasso’s character was in the estimate; he hated washing; it balefully depraved his temper; and not only, creature of habit that he was, would he decline to lie down anywhere save in their bedroom, he would lament, plead, insist unremittingly, if excluded; terrifying every poor invalid of the house.  Then again, were they at this late hour to dress themselves, and take him downstairs, and light a fire in the kitchen, and boil sufficient water to give him a bath and scrubbing?  Cold water would be death to him.  Besides, he would ring out his alarum for the house to hear, pour out all his poetry, poor dear, as Mr. Posterley called it, at a touch of cold water.  The catastrophe was one to weep over, the dilemma a trial of the strongest intelligences.

In addition to reviews of their solitary alternative-the having of a befouled degraded little dog in their chamber through the night, they were subjected to a conflict of emotions when eyeing him:  and there came to them the painful, perhaps irreverent, perhaps uncharitable, thought:—­that the sinner who has rolled in the abominable, must cleanse him and do things to polish him and perfume before again embraced even by the mind:  if indeed we can ever have our old sentiment for him again!  Mr. Stuart Rem might decide it for them.  Nay, before even the heart embraces him, he must completely purify himself.  That is to say, the ordinary human sinner—­save when a relative.  Contemplating Tasso, the hearts of the ladies gushed out in pity of an innocent little dog, knowing not evil, dependent on his friends for help to be purified;—­necessarily kept at a distance:  the very look of him prescribed extreme separation, as far as practicable.  But they had proof of a love almost greater than it was previous to the offence, in the tender precautions they took to elude repulsion.