After which, with the reading of che lessons, more psalm-singing and a sermon, the service came to an end. “Well,” remarked Farmer Chadd, “Vicar may not ha’ spoken with the tongue o’ angels as the text said, but he certainly did make folk see what charity means.” “Ay,” said Farmer Mutlow, “and though I’m with him in preferrin’ the Prayer-book, yet I will say it cheered my heart wonderful to pray for a good apple year, and above all to ask straight out for a blessin’ on the hops. Parson he knows well enough what plaguey uncertain things they be, and though the liturgy lumps ’em all in with ‘fruits o’ the earth that in due time we may enjoy them,’ yet I always did hold with prayer for each child by name, and if for children why not for crops?” “Quite right, neighbour, quite right,” said Farmer Chadd. “We’ll ask him to say a word for the hops every Sunday.” CHAPTER XLIV. “Trouthe is the heighest thing that men may kepe.” --Chaucer. “Truth is God’s child, and the fortunes of truth are God’s care as well as ours.” --Bishop Phillips Brooks. The little room in the church tower had become curiously dear to Gabriel. Its bare walls, its bell ropes, its dusty rafters and the narrow window half veiled by ivy, were associated with those happy days when life and health gradually returned, and Hilary, with all her old winsomeness, and with that new and half-wistful humility which changed her from a self-willed child to a noble woman, grew hourly more precious to him. One day, however, nearly six weeks after the Battle of. Ledbury, he noticed how thin her hands were growing, and, looking more searchingly into her face, thought less of its beauty and more of the dark shadows round her eyes. “You are pale and weary, dear heart,” he said, caressing the hand that had done so much for him. “These long weeks have overtaxed you.” “No, no; I shall be well enough when you are quite safe,” said Hilary, her voice faltering. “But--don’t laugh at me, Gabriel!--I feel as if you would be called on to suffer for my sin.” “Your sin?” he questioned. “’Tis no idle superstition,” she said, her eyes filling, “’tis an instinct that my punishment will come that way.” “But what sin? That of playing good Samaritan to a rebel?” said Gabriel, smiling. “I mean the lie that I told in the orchard,” she said, drooping her head. “That was as much my fault as yours,” said Gabriel, tenderly. “I moved, and that affrighted you; but to listen to that villain was more than I could endure.” “Oh, you’ll never know what it was to feel when you were carried here that, but for my cowardice, the duel need never have been fought,” said Hilary. “Had I only kept silence, Waghorn would have been present, and would at least have saved me from Colonel Norton.” “You were not cowardly!” he protested. “Yes; to lie is cowardly,” she said. “And it is the one thing I thought I never could do.”