gown, leaning on his stick, bent and
grey with imprisonment, had heard his clear answers, his searching
questions, and his merry conclusion after sentence had been pronounced;
she had stayed at home with the stricken family on the morning of the
sixth of July, kneeling with them at her prayers in the chapel of the
New Building, during the hours until Mr. Roper looked in grey-faced and
trembling, and they knew that all was over. She went with them to the
burial in St. Peter's Chapel in the Tower; and last, which was the most
dreadful ordeal of all, she had stood in the summer darkness by the
wicket-gate, had heard the cautious stroke of oars, and the footsteps
coming up the path, and had let Margaret in bearing her precious burden
robbed from the spike on London Bridge.

Then for a while she had gone down to the country with Mrs. More and
her daughters; and now she was back once more, in a kind of psychical
convalescence, at her aunt's new house on the river-bank at Charing.

* * * * *

Her face was a little paler than it used to be, but there was a
quickening brightness in her eyes as she swept along in her blue mantle,
with her maid beside her, in the rear of the liveried servant, who
carried a silver-headed wand a few yards in front.

She was rehearsing to herself the scene in which Ralph had asked her to
be his wife.

Where Chris had left the room the two had remained perfectly still until
the street-door had closed; and then Ralph had turned to her with a
question in his steady eyes.

She had told him then that she did not believe one word of what the monk
had insinuated; but she had been conscious even at the time that she was
making what theologians call an act of faith. It was not that there were
not difficulties to her in Ralph's position--there were plenty--but she
had determined by a final and swift decision to disregard them and
believe in him. It was a last step in a process that continued ever
since she had become interested by this strong brusque man; and it had
been precipitated by the fanatical attack to which she had just been a
witness. The discord, as she thought it, of Ralph's character and
actions had not been resolved; yet she had decided in that moment that
it need not be; that her data as concerned those actions were
insufficient; and that if she could not explain, at least she could
trust.

Ralph had been very honest, she told herself now. He had reminded