“And Ali and I entered, like Satan, and completed the vision?  Thank you, considering the fact that you are on my premises, and know something of my angelic, sanctified temper, I must say you indulge in bold flights of imagery.”

“I did not say that, sir.”

“You thought it nevertheless.  Don’t be hypocritical!  Is not that what you thought of?”

She made no reply, and anxious to terminate an interview painfully embarrassing to her, stepped forward to pick up the history which lay on the grass.

“What book is that?”

She handed it to him, and the leaves happened to open at a picture representing the murder of Becket.  A scowl blackened his face as he glanced at it, and turned away, muttering: 

“Malice prepense! or the devil!”

At a little distance, leisurely cropping the long grass, stood his favorite horse, whose arched forehead and peculiar mouse-color proclaimed his unmistakable descent from the swift hordes that scour the Kirghise steppes, and sanctioned the whim which induced his master to call him “Tamerlane.”  As Mr. Murray approached his horse, Edna walked away toward the house, fearing that he might overtake her; but no sound of hoofs reached her ears, and looking back as she crossed the avenue and entered the flower-garden, she saw horse and rider standing where she left them, and wondered why Mr. Murray was so still, with one arm on the neck of his Tartar pet, and his own head bent down on his hand.

In reflecting upon what had occurred, she felt her repugnance increase, and began to think that they could not live in the same house without continual conflicts, which would force her to abandon the numerous advantages now within her grasp.  The only ray of hope darted through her mind when she recalled his allusion to a contemplated visit to the South Sea Islands, and the possibility of his long absence.  Insensibly her dislike of the owner extended to everything he handled, and much as she had enjoyed the perusal of Dante, she determined to lose no time in restoring the lost volume, which she felt well assured his keen eyes would recognize the first time she inadvertently left it in the library or the greenhouse.  The doubt of her honesty, which he had expressed to his mother, rankled in the orphan’s memory, and for some days she had been nerving herself to anticipate a discovery of the book by voluntarily restoring it.  The rencontre in the park by no means diminished her dread of addressing him on this subject; but she resolved that the rendition of Caesar’s things to Caesar should take place that evening before she slept.

CHAPTER VI.