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"The same, but the book concerns rather the fallen angels . . ." he stopped and stammered a little: "I had forgotten such things."

"The Church of England is much to be blamed," said Harman, "in that she encourages reading outside the Word of God, such as the fabulous books of Wisdom and Sirach, which are only tales."

"Nay, rather they are for example of life and instruction of manners, as the Article says. But Enoch is not among those."

"A Papist book?"

"Nay—nay, I told you—a book of the Jews. But let's have no more of it. . . . And here comes my little bud again, or rather my young woman; for I hear thou art a woman grown now, Condemnation."

The girl did not speak. She came in with a fresh platter of soup for her father, carrying under her arm a besom and a mop, with which she swept up the broken pieces and mopped the spilled soup from the floor. All the while she did not speak, though Gervase joked and teased her on being grown so old. Her air was both frightened and sullen. She seemed afraid to speak: though her fear was not so much a fear of blows—since neither Gervase nor Exalted would have struck her—as a sort of general fear of mankind. She was afraid as a bird is afraid in a man's hand; stroke her or strike her, she would fly away if she could.