On being introduced to Mrs. Fellowes he seemed to find that he had various links with her and they paired off together, leaving the two old friends in company. "Oh, Mark, how delightful he is," exclaimed Hester, her face all aglow. "I haven't seen anybody so nice since I parted with my father!" "Ah, then you have capitulated, just as I hoped. But I'm not going to be hard on you for your former state of siege. I knew the victory was sure, and it has come partly because he took to you at once, I could see. My chief is sometimes rather bearish, I admit. I tremble for the offences he may give at the gathering to-night. He's a grand bit of marble, Hester--to take up our simile of St. Thomas's Mount!" "But has the chipping process begun, Mark? Though he was so nice to me I confess he talked very hopelessly, very cynically, about some things." "Oh, yes, the process is going on! But we must not forget in that process one day is as a thousand years with the Great Sculptor," said Mark softly, as he glanced up at the dark blue vault where the great moon was already rising, silvering the vast expanse of waters. "But, Mark," said Hester, suddenly preparing to plunge into the topic which he fain would have avoided, "how can you meet me like this--how can you ever speak to me again after what happened that morning? Oh, the shame, the misery of it," she added, her voice faltering. "And I was so anxious that poor Alfred should come under your influence! You remember I was pleading for that on our ride home, little thinking that all was going to end as it did--that things were going to happen so soon that would make a great gulf between you. Will you try to believe that really he was not himself that morning? Something at Palaveram must have upset him dreadfully or he could never have spoken so to you. Can you ever forgive him?" Mark felt glad that Hester should treat the episode in this light and not as a proof of her husband's utter unworthiness. "Surely we must make allowance for others when we need so much forgiveness for ourselves," said Mark, in a moved tone. "I saw your husband was much unnerved. I hardly think our morning ride could be the cause. Try to forget it, Hester! Treat it like a bad dream--we awake and it is gone." "Oh, thank you! You don't know how your words comfort me. I thought you would never speak to me again. Now I must tell you what it was that brought me any comfort. It was that poem--'Rabbi Ben Ezra'--in the book you sent me. That it should come from you, who I feared would not look at either of us again, seemed to me the doing of an angel!" "A very earthly messenger, I assure you," said Mark, shaking his head. "But I'm glad you came on that poem. It has been a possession to me for long."