Page:By Sanction of Law.pdf/144

 give us your word that you'll not see Miss Lauriston any more; that you will not communicate with her or in any way seek to associate with her.

"I may also say that your further association with her is distasteful to Miss Gregory, to some members of the faculty and would be decidedly so to the young lady's family. In fact a persistence in your attitude will mean not only a faculty vote but trouble, endless trouble for you both. What have you to say?"

Bennet listened to the words then with one hand ministerially thrust into his bosom where the coat was unbuttoned, with a voice so passion-spent that his words came with almost percussive explosiveness spoke. There was the agony of a tortured soul in every syllable, having sensed immediately the import of his summons. As he faced them with the confidence of youth, yet the gravity of age, he said:

"Gentlemen of the Faculty:—As I read your faces, hear your charges and study the gravity of your countenances I am led to ask myself whether I'm among Christians or heathens, leaders or slaves, friends or foes. I had thought that during my four years here I was among friends.

"This that you propose to do, in fact already have done, might easily be catalogued among the crimes of the ages. You have set yourselves to the task of preventing the most moral, the most human, most natural act of life, the perfectly cosmic mating of two souls.

"You threaten me with expulsion from your school. Not only that. You seek to deprive me of something