Simple man that he was, he had meant--having a load to lift presently off his conscience--to receive and be confirmed by the Sacrament. "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent"--the words had been in his ears at the moment when he took his resolve. Hopeless though the prospect might be, he steadfastly intended to lead a new life. "My friend," said Vashti. "I am contrite enough already for the amount of your time I have wasted. We will put off our voyage until the evening." He smiled wryly, remembering how she had asked, "For what work do they pay you?" But Vashti having decided upon an evening expedition, would not listen to his offer to sacrifice his church-going; and so to church he went, and confirmed himself, and remained to take the Sacrament on his new resolution. Now whether or not he would have remained could he have divined what was happening on Garrison Hill I have no wish--as it would be indecent--to inquire. But let us go back to Miss Gabriel. * * * * * Miss Gabriel, all the previous day, had been suffering from a sense of defeat, and at the hands of an enemy she had fallen into the habit of despising. A woman (or a man, for that matter) of Miss Gabriel's temper sees the world peopled with antagonists, and (perhaps fortunately for her _amour propre_) cannot see that her occasional victor is not only quite indifferent to his victory but has very possibly succeeded on the mere strength of not caring two pins about it, or even on the mere strength of not knowing that there was any fight going on. Such insouciance would have galled Miss Gabriel past endurance had it not, mercifully, lain outside her range of apprehension. As it was, she felt that the Commandant had taken her easily, at a disadvantage, and routed her--horse, foot, artillery, baggage. And at the moment she had collapsed without a struggle. There lay the sting. She had meekly thrown up her hand, though it held one exceedingly strong trump. That woman in furs and diamonds.... Why had she not insisted on the existence of her own eyes and held her ground, demanding whence that woman came and what she did on Garrison Hill at such an hour? The longer Miss Gabriel thought of it--and she thought of it all the next day--the more firmly she refused to believe herself the victim of an hallucination. She lived frugally; her nerves and digestion were alike in excellent order; in all her life she had never suffered from faintness, and but once or twice from a headache. The keenness of her eyesight was notorious, and she had a healthy contempt for anyone who believed in ghosts.... Moreover, Charlotte Pope, though inclined now to hedge about it, had undoubtedly seen the apparition.