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Gervase could see the vivid colours of his sister's gown and petticoat standing against the dim, rosy wall of the manor. The ground floor of Conster was built of old, mellow bricks, above which the upper story hung, three beamed and lime-washed gables.

"Who's that with her?" he asked.

"Mr. Parsons."

Gervase made a grimace.

§ 9

"Ah, Gerr-r-vase," said Louise Alard, coming forward.

She spoke English with charming fluency and some equally charming hesitations. She had been no more than sixteen when Charles Alard married her at the end of his exile, and now she looked far less than her thirty-eight years, for her shape was trim and delicate and her face was like a little pointed heart.

Gervase kissed her hand, which had a mysterious scent upon it, and turned from her to answer her companion's greeting. Mr. Parsons was about forty years old, dark, short, and dressed in a neat, old-fashioned style. Gervase had met him already once or twice, for he was a fairly frequent visitor at the Manor. Rumour held him to be a Jacobite spy, and though Gervase was convinced of his brother's political integrity he had a pretty strong suspicion that the stranger was a Romish priest. Louise, he knew, was periodically visited by such, who ministered to her and to the one or two Papist families that still survived in the neighbourhood. The tolerance of the times allowed it, and he personally was glad that his sister should still be pious in her adopted country and have opportunities to practise her religion. But he respected the silence that Charles always maintained on the subject, reading in it a desire not to embarrass him as Parson of the parish. . . . Apart from his pride in keeping out conventicles (and he was not sure if Mr. Parsons' visits constituted a conventicle) he had no strong feelings against the Romish Church; he had indeed at one time thought of joining it.