"My lord, there is a
question I have put to myself many times, and have promised myself to
put to you. Why does Tatty never talk to me about God and religion and
such things?"

He did not answer at once.

She went on: "It cannot only be because you do not believe in them.
For Tatty is very religious, and brave as a lion; she would never be
silent against her conscience."

"How do you know that I don't believe in them?"

She laughed. "Does my lord truly suppose me so dull of wit? or will he
fence with my question instead of answering it?"

"The truth is, then," he confessed, "that before she saw you I thought
fit to tell Miss Quiney what you had suffered--"

"She has known it from the first? I wondered sometimes. But oh, the
dear deceit of her!"

"--And seeing that this same religion had caused your sufferings, I
asked her to deal gently with you. She would not promise more than to
wait and choose her own time. But Tatty, as you call her, is an
honourable woman."

Ruth stretched out her hands.

"Ah, you were good--you were good! . . . If only my heart were a glass,
and you might see how goodness becomes you!"

He took her hands this time, and laying one over another, kissed the
back of the uppermost, but yet so respectfully that Miss Quiney,
entering the room just then, supposed him to be merely taking a
ceremonious leave.

For a few minutes he lingered out his call, hat and walking-cane in
hand, talking pleasantly of his last night's guests, and with a smile
that assumed his pardon to be granted. Incidentally Ruth learned how it
had happened that a chair stood empty for her by Mr. Langton's side.
It appeared that Governor Shirley himself had called, earlier in the
evening, to offer his felicitations; and finding the seat on Sir
Oliver's right occupied by a toper who either would not or could not
make room, he had with some tact taken a chair at the far end of the
table and _vis-a-vis_ with his host, protesting that he chose it as the
better vantage-ground for delivering a small speech. His speech, too,
had been neat, happy in phrase, and not devoid of good feeling. Having
delivered it, he had slipped away early, on an excuse of official
business.

Sir Oliver related this appreciatively; and it had, in fact, been one of
those small courtesies which, among men of English stock, give a grace
to public life and help to keep the fighting clean. But in fact also
(Ruth gathered) the two men did n