If not in this one, then in that. Do not lose faith in
them."

"You think me evidently in a bad way," says she, smiling faintly. She
has recovered herself in part, but though she tries to turn his earnest
words into a jest, one can see that she is perilously near to tears.

"You mean that I am preaching to you," says he, smiling too. "Well, so I
am. What right has a girl like you to disbelieve in anything? Why,"
laughing, "it can't be so very long ago since you believed in fairies,
in pixies, and the fierce dragons of our childhood."

"I don't know that I am not a believer in them still," says she. "In the
dragons, at all events. Evil seems to rule the world."

"Tut!" says he. "I have preached in vain."

"You would have me believe in good only," says she. "You assure me very
positively that all the best virtues are still riding to and fro,
redeeming the world, with lances couched and hearts on fire. But where
to find them? In you?"

It is a very gentle smile she gives him as she says this.

"Yes: so far, at least, as you are concerned," says he, stoutly. "I
shall be true and honest to you so long as my breath lives in my body.
So much I can swear to."

"Well," says she, with a rather meagre attempt at light-heartedness,
"you almost persuade me with that truculent manner of yours into
believing in you at all events, or is it," a little sadly, "that the
ways of others drive me to that belief? Well," with a sigh, "never mind
how it is, you benefit by it, any way."

"I don't want to force your confidence," says Dysart; "but you have been
made unhappy by somebody, have you not?"

"I have not been made happy," says she, her eyes on the ground. "I don't
know why I tell you that. You asked a hard question."

"I know. I should have been silent, perhaps, and yet----"

At this moment the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the steps
startles them.

"Joyce!" says he, "grant me one request."

"One! You rise to tragedy!" says she, as if a little amused in spite of
the depression under which she is so evidently laboring. "Is it to be
your last, your dying prayer?"

"I hope not. Nevertheless I would have it granted."

"You have only to speak," says she, with a slight gesture that is half
mocking, half kindly.

"Come with me after luncheon, to-morrow, up to St. Bridget's Hill?"

"Is that all? And to throw such force into it. Yes, yes; I shall enjoy a
long walk like that."

"It is not because of the walk tha