Ella gave all her attention to the opera--to that tragedy of the weakness of the flesh, albeit the spirit may be willing to listen to good. Alas! that the flesh should be so full of color and charm and seduction, while the spirit is pale, colorless, and set to music in a minor key!

/Carmen/ flashed about the stage under the brilliant lights, looking like a lovely purple butterfly--a lovely purple oriole endowed with the double glory of plumage and song, and men whose hearts beat in unison with the heart-beats of that sensuous music through which she expressed herself, loved her; watched her with ravished eyes; heard her with ravished ears--yes, as men love such women; until the senses recover from the intoxication of her eyes and her limbs and her voice. And in the third act the sweet /Michaela/ came on with her song of the delight of purity, and peace, and home. She sang it charmingly, everyone allowed, and hoped that /Carmen/ would sing as well in the last act as she had sung in the others.

Ella Linton kept her eyes fixed upon the stage to the very end of all.

When George Holland received his two letters and read them he laid them side by side and asked himself what each of them meant.

Well, he could make a pretty good guess as to what the bishop's meant. The bishop meant business. But what did Mr. Linton want with him? Mr. Linton was a business man, perhaps he meant business too. Business men occasionally mean business; they more frequently only pretend to do so, in order to put off their guard the men they are trying to get the better of.

He would have an interview with the bishop; so much was certain; and that interview was bound to be a difficult one--for the bishop. It was with some degree of pride that he anticipated the conflict. He would withdraw nothing that he had written. Let all the forces of the earth be leagued against him, he would abate not a jot--not a jot. (By the forces of the earth he meant the Bench of Bishops, which was scarcely doing justice to the bishops--or to the forces of the earth.)

Yes, they might deprive him of his living, but that would make no difference to him. Not a jot--not a jot! They might persecute him to the death. He would be faithful unto death to the truths he had endeavored to spread abroad. He felt that they were truths.

But that other letter, which also asked for an interview at his earliest convenience the next day, was rather more puzzling to George Holland. He had never had any but the most casual acquaintance with Mr. Linton--such an acquaintance as one has with one's host at a house where one has occasionally dined. He had dined at Mr. Linton's house more than once; but then he had been seated in such proximity to Mrs. Linton as necessitated his remoteness from Mr. Linton. Therefore he had never had a chance of becoming intimate with that gentleman. Why, then, should that gentleman desire an early interview with him?