in heaven."
Caius was feeling again that she was remote from him, and yet the hint
of passionate loneliness in tone and words remained a new revelation of
her life. "Is not religion enough?" He asked this only out of curiosity.

"It is not true religion if we are content to be alone with God; it is
not the religion of the holy Christ; it is a fancy, a delusion, a
mistake. Have you not read about St. John? Ah, I do not say that it is
not often right to live alone, just as it may be right to be ill or
starving. That is because the world has gone wrong; and to be content,
it is to blaspheme; it is like saying that what is wrong is God's ideal
for us, and will last for ever."

Caius was realizing that as she talked she was thinking only of the
theme, not at all of him; he had enough refinement in him to perceive
this quite clearly. It was the first time that she had spoken of her
religion to him, and her little sermon, which he felt to be too wholly
unreasonable to appeal to his mind, was yet too wholly womanly to repel
his heart.

Some dreamy consciousness seemed to come to her now that she had tarried
longer than she wished, and perhaps that her subject had not been one
that she cared to discuss with him. She turned and put her hand on the
pommel, and sprang into the saddle. He had often seen her make that
light, wonderful spring that seated her as if by magic on her horse's
back, but in her last weeks of nursing the sick folk she had not been
strong enough to do it. He saw now how much stronger she looked. The
weeks of rest had made her a different woman; there was a fresh colour
in her cheek, and the tired lines were all gone. She looked younger by
years than when he saw her last--younger, too, than when he had first
seen her, for even then she was weary. If he could only have seen the
line of her chin, or the height of her brow, or the way her hair turned
back from her temples, he thought that he might not have reckoned the
time when he had first seen her in the sick-room at Cloud Island as
their first meeting.

"You are going on?" said Madame Le Maitre.

"Unless I can be of service to you by turning with you."

He knew by the time of day that he must turn shortly; but he had no hope
that she wanted him to go with her.

"You can do me more service," she said, and she gave him a little smile
that was like the ghost of the sea-maid's smile, "by letting me go home
alone."

He rode on, and when he looked back he