To say that Pembroke was angry with Cole is hardly putting it strong enough. He ardently longed that he might once again inflict a thrashing upon him like those Cole had been wont to receive in his school days. He had taken the little clergyman to Malvern, and kept him a day or two before sending him home to his mother. Cole's remorse was pitiful. He wanted to write to the whole House of Bishops, to make a public reparation, to do a number of quixotic things which Pembroke's strong sense forbade peremptorily. When after two days of sincere, but vociferous penitence, Mr. Cole was at last sent back to his rectory, he went under strict instructions from Pembroke to keep his misfortune to himself. But alas for poor Cole! What stung him most was that Madame Koller should have seen him in that condition—for the two hard slaps that she had given him had by no means cured his infatuation. On the contrary, her strong nerves, her fierce temper, her very recklessness of conventionality, irresistibly attracted his timid and conservative nature. What had offended Pembroke, who looked for a certain feminine restraint in all women, and gentleness, even in daring, had charmed Cole. His anguish, when he found, that in addition to his paroxysm of shame, he suffered tortures because
