The family expressed great regret at parting with him; they were in a continual state of apprehension from their Puritan neighbours; but Inglesant’s presence was no defence but rather the contrary, and it is possible that some of them may have been glad that he was going. Mary Collet looked sadly and wistfully at him as they stood before the porch of the house in the setting sunlight, the long shadows resting on the grass, the evening wind murmuring in the tall trees and shaking down the falling leaves. "Do you know what this service is?" she said at last. "I cannot make the slightest guess," he answered. "Whatever it is you will do it?" she asked again. "Certainly; to do otherwise would be to contradict the tenor of my life." "It may be something that your conscience cannot approve," she said. "It is too late to think of that," he said, smiling; "I should have thought of that years ago, when I was a boy at Westacre, and this man came to me as an angel of light—to me a weak, ignorant, country lad—to me, who owe him everything that I am, everything that I know, everything—even the power that enables me to act for him." Did she remember how he had once offered himself without reserve to her, then at least without any reservation in favour of this man? Did she regret that she had not encouraged this other attraction, or did she see that the same thing would have happened whether she had accepted him or no? She gave no indication of either of these thoughts. "I think you owe something to another," she said, softly; "to One who knew you before this Jesuit; to One who was leading you onward before he came across your path; to One who gave you high and noble qualities, without which the Jesuit could have given you nothing; to One whom you have professed to love; to One for whose Divine Voice you have desired to listen. Johnny, will you listen no longer for it?" He never forgot her, standing before him with her hands clasped and her eyes raised to his,—the flush of eager speaking on her face,—those great eyes, moistened again with tears, that pierced through him to his very soul,—her trembling lip,—the irresistible nobleness of her whole figure,—her winning manner, through which the love she had confessed for him spoke in every part. He never saw her again but once—then in how different a posture and scene; and the beauty of this sight never went out of his life, but it produced no effect upon his purpose; indeed how could it, when his purpose was not so much a part of him as he was a part of it? He looked at her in silence, and his love and admiration spoke out so unmistakably in his look that Mary never afterwards doubted that he had loved her. He had not power to explain his conduct; he could not have told himself why he acted as he did. Amid the distracting purposes which tore his heart in twain he could say nothing but,— "It may not be so bad as you think."