see it quite otherwise. I have been congratulating
myself on the praiseworthy abundance of my discretion."

And the words were no sooner out of his mouth than Richard cursed
himself for a bungler, and a slightly vulgar one at that. But upon his
hearer those same words worked a remarkable change. Her gloom, her
abstraction, departed, leaving only a pretty pensiveness. She smiled
with chastened sweetness upon Richard Calmady--a smile nicely attuned
to the semi-religious simplicity of her dress.

"Ah! perhaps we are both a trifle out of sorts this morning!" she said.
"I, too, have had my little turn of sickness--sickness of heart. And
that seems unfair, since I rose in the best disposition of spirit.
Quite early I went to confession."

"Confession?" Richard repeated. "I did not know your submission to the
Church carried you to such practical lengths."

"Evidently we are each fated to make small discoveries regarding the
habits of the other, to-day," she rejoined. "Possibly confession is to
me just what those nights spent on board the yacht, lying in that
malodorous harbour, are to you!"

Helen's smile broadened to a dainty naughtiness, infinitely provoking.
But pensiveness speedily supervened. She folded her hands upon the edge
of the table and looked down at them meditatively.

"I relieved my conscience. Not that there was much to relieve it of,
thank heaven! We have lived austerely enough most of us, this winter in
France. Only it becomes a matter of moral, personal cleanliness, after
a time, all that--exaggerated, but very comfortable. Just as one takes
one's bath twice daily, not that it is necessary but that it is a
luxury of physical purity and self-respect, so one comes to go to
confession. That is a luxury of moral purification. It is as a bath to
the soul, ministering to the perfection of its cleanliness and health."

She looked up at Richard smiling, that same dainty naughtiness very
present.

"You observe I am eminently candid. I tell you exactly how my religion
affects me. I can only reach high-thinking through acts which are
external and concrete. In short, I am a born sacramentalist."

And Richard listened, interested and entertained. Yet, since that
strange blurring of fog still confused his vision and his judgment,
vaguely suspicious that he missed the main intent of her speech.
Suspicious as one who, listening to the clever patter of a conjurer,
detects in it the effort to distract attention fro