“Has she told him?” he wondered, studying her from his place in the shadow as the lamplight shone full upon her wasted features and hectic colouring. “Has she taken courage and confessed her sin to that loyal, loving husband, and is the burden lifted from her heart?” No; he could not believe that she had lifted the veil from the sad secret of her past. Martin Disney’s unclouded brow to-night was not that of a man who had lately discovered that the wife he loved had betrayed him. There might be pardon--there might be peace between husband and wife after such a revelation; but there could not be the serenity which marked Martin Disney’s manner to his wife to-night. Such a thunder-clap must leave its brand upon the man who suffered it. No; her secret was still locked in her impenitent heart. Sorry--yes. She had drunk the cup of remorse in all its bitterness; but she knew not true penitence, the Christian’s penitence, which means self-abasement and confession. And yet she seemed happier. There was a look of almost holy resignation upon the pale and placid brow, and in the too-lustrous eyes. Something had happened--some moral transformation which made her a new being. Father Rodwell drew his chair nearer to her, and looked at her earnestly with his cordial, almost boyish smile. He was a remarkably young-looking man, a man upon whom long years of toil in the dark places of the earth had exercised no wasting or withering influence. He had loved his work too well ever to feel the pressure of the burdens he carried. His gospel had been always a cheerful gospel, and he had helped to lighten sorrows, never to make them heavier. He was deeply interested in Isola, and had been watchful of all her changes of mood since their conversation in the shadow of the old Roman wall. He had seen her impressed by the history and traditions of the church, moved by the pathos of holy lives, touched almost to tears by sacred pictures, and he saw in her character and disposition a natural bent towards piety, exactly that receptive temperament which moves holy women to lives of self-abnegation and heroic endeavour. He had lent her some of those books which he loved best and read most himself, and he had talked with her of religion, careful not to say too much or with too strong an emphasis, and never by any word alluding to her revelation of past guilt. He wanted to win her to perfect trustfulness in him, to teach her to lean upon him in her helplessness; until the hour should come when she would let him lead her to her husband, in the self-abasement of the penitent sinner.