The light shone full on Mary Collet’s face, looking down on him as he spoke. The odour of the garden flowers filled the room. The stillness of the late afternoon was unbroken, save by the murmur of insect life. Her eyes—those wonderful eyes that had first attracted him in the Church—grew larger and more soft as they looked down on him with a love and tenderness which he had never seen before, and saw only once again. For some seconds she did not—perhaps could not—speak, for the great lustrous eyes were moist with tears. He would have lain there for ever with no thought but of those kindly eyes. At last she spoke, and her voice was tender, but low and calm; "Johnny,"—it was the first time she had called him so, and she said it twice,—"Johnny, you were right, I know you better than you know yourself. Your first instinct was right; but it was not your poverty, nor the distraction of the time, nor yet this mysterious fate that governs you, which kept you silent; poverty and the troubles of the times we might have suffered together; this mysterious fate we might have borne together, or have broken through. No," she continued with a radiant smile, "cavalier and courtier as you are, you also, in spite of Mr. Thorne, have heard a voice behind you saying, ’This is the way, walk in it.’ That way, Johnny, you will never leave for me. As this voice told you, this is not a time for us to spend our moments like two lovers in a play; we have both of us other work to do, work laid out for us, from which we may not shrink; a path to walk in where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. As for me, if I can follow in any degree in the holy path my uncle walked in, growing more into the life of Jesus as he grew into it, it is enough for me; as for you, you will go on through the dark days that are at hand, as your way shall lead you, and as the divine voice shall call; and when I hear your name, as I shall hear it, Johnny, following as the divine call shall lead, you may be sure that my heart will beat delightedly at the name of a very noble gentleman who loves me, and whom—I love." The evening sun that lighted all the place went down suddenly behind the hedges of the garden, and the room grew dark. *CHAPTER VIII.*