Coryston sat down to discuss the matter with his companions, showing a white heat of feeling. "The religious tyrant," he vowed, "is the most hideous of all tyrants!"
Marion said little. Her grave look followed her guest's vehement talk; but she scarcely betrayed her own point of view. The doctor, of course, was as angry as Coryston.
Presently Atherstone was summoned into the house, and then Coryston said, abruptly:
"My mother likes that fellow—Newbury. My sister likes him. From what I hear he might become my brother-in-law. He sha'n't—before Marcia knows this story!"
Marion looked a little embarrassed, and certainly disapproving.
"He has very warm friends down here," she said, slowly; "people who admire him enormously."
"So had Torquemada!" cried Coryston. "What does that prove? Look here!"—he put both elbows on the table, and looked sharply into Marion's plain and troubled countenance—"don't you agree with me?"
"I don't know whether I do or not—I don't know enough about it."
"You mustn't," he said, eagerly—"you mustn't disagree with me!" Then, after a pause, "Do you know that I'm always hearing about you, Miss Atherstone, down in those villages?"
Marion blushed furiously, then laughed.