h its equity, its balance, and its fire--what might it not have
accomplished in shepherding such a cause, guiding its activity?

The gate of the garden clicked. Kate Heaver had arrived. Faith got to
her feet and left the room.

A few minutes later the woman of the cross-roads was seated opposite
Faith at the window. She had changed greatly since the day David had
sent her on her way to London and into the unknown. Then there had been
recklessness, something of coarseness, in the fine face. Now it was
strong and quiet, marked by purpose and self-reliance.

Ignorance had been her only peril in the past, as it had been the cause
of her unhappy connection with Jasper Kimber. The atmosphere in which
she was raised had been unmoral; it had not been consciously immoral.
Her temper and her indignation against her man for drinking had been the
means of driving them apart. He would have married her in those days, if
she had given the word, for her will was stronger than his own; but she
had broken from him in an agony of rage and regret and despised love.

She was now, again, as she had been in those first days before she went
with Jasper Kimber; when she was the rose-red angel of the quarters;
when children were lured by the touch of her large, shapely hands; when
she had been counted a great nurse among her neighbours. The old simple
untutored sympathy was in her face.

They sat for a long time in silence, and at length Faith said: "Thee is
happy now with her who is to marry Lord Eglington?"

Kate nodded, smiling. "Who could help but be happy with her! Yet a
temper, too--so quick, and then all over in a second. Ah, she is one
that'd break her heart if she was treated bad; but I'd be sorry for him
that did it. For the like of her goes mad with hurting, and the mad cut
with a big scythe."

"Has thee seen Lord Eglington?"

"Once before I left these parts and often in London." Her voice was
constrained; she seemed not to wish to speak of him.

"Is it true that Jasper Kimber is to stand against him for Parliament?"

"I do not know. They say my lord has to do with foreign lands now. If he
helps Mr. Claridge there, then it would be a foolish thing for Jasper to
fight him; and so I've told him. You've got to stand by those that stand
by you. Lord Eglington has his own way of doing things. There's not
a servant in my lady's house that he hasn't made his friend. He's one
that's bound to have his will. I heard my lady say he tal