him, this intellectual, clean-shaven, rigidly abstemious man, whose
pleasures belonged to the fishing-rod and the gun and the horse, and who
had come to be so great a friend of him who had been her best friend--
Father Bourassa. Father Bourassa had come to know the truth--not from
her, for she had ever been a Protestant, but from her husband, who,
Catholic by birth and a renegade from all religion, had had a moment of
spurious emotion, when he went and confessed to Father Bourassa and got
absolution, pleading for the priest's care of his wife. Afterwards
Father Bourassa made up his mind that the confession had a purpose behind
it other than repentance, and he deeply resented the use to which he
thought he was being put--a kind of spy upon the beautiful woman whom
Jansen loved, and who, in spite of any outward flippancy, was above
reproach.

In vital things the instinct becomes abnormally acute, and, one day, when
the priest looked at her commiseratingly, she had divined what moved him.
However it was, she drove him into a corner with a question to which he
dare not answer yes, but to which he might not answer no, and did not;
and she realised that he knew the truth, and she was the better for his
knowing, though her secret was no longer a secret. She was not aware
that Finden also knew. Then Varley came, bringing a new joy and interest
in her life, and a new suffering also, for she realised that if she were
free, and Varley asked her to marry him, she would consent.

But when he did ask her, she said no with a pang that cut her heart in
two. He had stayed his four months, and it was now six months, and he
was going at last-tomorrow. He had stayed to give her time to learn to
say yes, and to take her back with him to London; and she knew that he
would speak again to-day, and that she must say no again; but she had
kept him from saying the words till now. And the man who had ruined her