and gazed through
the lattice with the deep interest which seems peculiar to provincial
towns, and which is seldom manifested in capitals, where the curiosity
is rather of the surface than of the very entrails of humanity. She
showed the tooth as she stood, but not in a smile. She was far too
interested in the lady and the white-haired clergyman to smile.

"I shouldn't wonder but what they're going to be married!" was her
feminine thought, as she watched them walking about the garden, and
presently pacing up and down one of the narrow paths, to the far-off
wall that bordered one end of the Bishop's Palace, and back again to the
wall near the Dark Entry. Canon Wilton had not mentioned Rosamund's name
to the verger's widow, who had no evil thoughts of bigamy. Presently the
chimes sounded in the tower, and Mrs. Soper saw the two visitors pause
in their walk to listen. They both looked upwards towards the Cathedral,
and on the lady's face there was a rapt expression which was remarked by
Mrs. Soper.

"She do look religious," murmured that lady to the tooth. "She might be
a bishop's lady when she a-stands like that."

The chimes died away, the visitors resumed their pacing walk, and
Mrs. Soper presently retired to the kitchen, which looked out on the
passage-way, to cook herself "a bit of something" for the midday staying
of her stomach.

In the garden that morning Rosamund and Father Robertson became friends.
Rosamund had never had an Anglican confessor, though she had sometimes
wished to confess, not because she was specially conscious of a burden
of sin, but rather because she longed to speak to some one of those
inmost thoughts which men and women seldom care to discuss with those
who are always in their lives. In Father Robertson she had found the
exceptional man with whom she would not mind being perfectly frank
about matters which were not for Dion, not for Beattie, not for
godfather--matters which she could never have hinted at even to Canon
Wilton, whose strong serenity she deeply admired. Had any of her nearest
and dearest heard Rosamund's talk with Father Robertson that day, they
would have realized, perhaps with astonishment, how strong was the
reserve which underlay her forthcoming manner and capacious frankness
about the ordinary matters of everyday existence.

"Father, a sermon from you changed my life, I think," she said, when
they had paced up and down the path only two or three times; and,
without any