r, as she gazed at him with startled, candid eyes, innocent of guile as
those of a babe? Only too certainly no word had reached her of the
truth. The good man groaned in spirit for, like Patch, he found himself
in a place of quite unexampled tightness, and with no hope of shunting
the immense discomfort of it on to alien shoulders such as had been
granted the happier Patch.

"Because," he began again, only to suffer renewed agony of wordlessness.
In desperation he shifted his ground.

"You have heard, perhaps, that your niece, Miss Damaris, left the church
before the conclusion of the sermon? I do not blame her"--

He waved a fatherly hand. Miss Verity acquiesced.

"Or rather was led out by--by Captain Faircloth--a young officer in the
mercantile marine, whose abilities and successful advance in his
profession this village has every reason to respect."

He broke off.

"Let us walk on towards The Hard. Pray let us walk on.--Has no rumour
ever reached you, Miss Verity, regarding this young man?"

The wildest ideas flitted through Miss Felicia's brain.

--The figure in shiny oilskins--yet preposterous, surely?--After all, an
affair of the heart--misplaced affection--Damaris?--Did this account for
the apparent indifference?

--How intensely interesting; yet how unwise.--How--but she must keep her
own counsel. The wind, now at her back, glued the blue coat
inconveniently against and even between her legs, unceremoniously
whisking her forward.

"Rumours--oh, none," she protested.

"None?" he echoed despairingly. "Pray let us walk on."

A foolish urgency on his part this, she felt, since she was already
almost on the run.

"None that, by birth, Captain Faircloth is somewhat nearly related to
your family--to your--your brother, Sir Charles, in fact?"

There, the incubus was off his straining chest at last! He felt easier,
capable of manipulating the situation to some extent, smoothing down its
rather terrible ascerbities.

"Such connections do," he hastened to add, "as we must regretfully
admit, exist even in the highest, the most exalted circles.
Irregularities of youth, doubtlessly deeply repented of. I repeat sins
of youth, at which only the sinless--and they, alas! to the shame of my
sex are lamentably few--can be qualified to cast a stone.--You, you
follow me?"

"You mean me to understand"--

"Yes, yes--exactly so--to understand that this young man is
reputed to be"--

"Thank you, my dear Canon--tha