him unerringly because of the very acuteness of her sympathy and the anxiety of her love. Concerning the girl—whoever it might be—she had no fear. She trusted the innocence of his youth. But it was this very innocence that she feared in the matter of his religion; and when to a pointed question of his belief, he replied desperately, "I'd—I'd rather not discuss it," the thought of her boy tempted and miserable kept her awake all night.
She felt that he needed a father's guidance. He was almost a man, now, and it must be that a man would understand him. When he stood before her, tall and quiet—as if thoughtful with his experience of that outer world from which he came into her four-walled prison of sickness—she was so conscious of his new manliness that she looked up to him almost as she looked up to her husband. They were of the same world and the same sex. Perhaps the father could help the son.
That she could have thought of such a plan showed how little she understood the silent lawyer. But she knew that he was constant in his attendance at church, that he took up the collection at the morning service, that he had been employed in legal matters by the bishop, that he was a trustee of the new hospital which had just been built by the Anglicans of the town. He never spoke of religion to her, but he never spoke of politics either, or indeed of any of the interests that kept him busy all day.
She put the case to him in timid hints and queries: Had Don acted strangely in church? Had he spoken
