still upon his conscience. At the porch he stopped to touch the holy water; but as he would have dipped his hand in the vessel, it was struck aside, and a voice whispered in his ear words at which his arm dropped by his side, and without a glance at the veiled woman who had challenged his right to the sacred water, he hurried from the church. He had been grievously at fault, and the sin upon which he had shut his eyes was to-day held up before him by an accusing conscience which had slept, alas! until he found himself confronted with the man whom he had wronged. His friend Philip Rondelet had been suspected of a crime of which he knew him to be innocent,—a crime of which Rondelet might never have heard had it not been for himself. For on that night when the young physician had been summoned to the deathbed of Fernand Thoron, his own name had been the guaranty of good faith which had secured Philip's attendance. How had he kept that good faith? Philip had not only been suspected of having killed Thoron by the sceptical gossips of the club-houses, but even by the woman he loved; and Robert, knowing this, had been silent, and had striven to win her love for himself while his friend was absent. A grievous sin, indeed; and yet he knew in his heart that had not Philip come back that day, he would have persisted in it. What would happen now?
