She opened it and disappeared into the churchyard. He followed, stumbling along the narrow path, and overtook her at the angle of the south porch. She was in the act of mounting upon a flat tombstone which lay close in the wall's shadow. A panel of light streamed from the window directly above, and fell on Vashti's face as she drew herself erect upon the slab and leaned forward, her fingers resting on the granite mullions; but a light not derived from this shone in her eyes a moment later. With a little sob of joy she pressed her forehead close against the leaded panes. The Commandant heard the sound, and guessed the cause of it. The light in her eyes he could not see. He stood among the dark nettles, looking up at her, waiting for the hymn to conclude. The "Amen" came at last. He heard the shuffling of feet as the congregation knelt to pray ... and, with that, Vashti turned and bent to whisper to him. "She is there--almost abreast of us, standing by the pillar. She is kneeling now--my own Ruth--and her face is hidden." He supposed that she bent to step down from the slab, and he put up a hand to help her. A tear fell on the back of his fingers, as it were a single raindrop out of the night.... But she turned impulsively, and pressed her face again to the glass. "She is praying. She will not look up again.... She would not turn her eyes just now, though her own sister stood so close! They were lifted to the lights in the chancel and to the dark window." Then, as it seemed, with sudden inconsequence, she added: "Forgive me, sir! You have been kind to me, and it is so many years--so many years----" "My dear," said the Commandant, gravely, as he handed her down, "you honour me more than I can tell. All my life I shall remember that you have so honoured me." But it did not appear that she heard him. Letting go his hand, she seated herself on the edge of the tombstone, and looked up at him with eyes that, barely touched by the light from the window, seemed to him strangely, almost pitifully childish--eyes of a child that had lost its mother young. "Her face was not changed, or a very little; far less than I feared. She is beautiful, my own Ruth--beautiful as she is good." "And happy?" he found himself asking. "Happy and unhappy. Happy in her good man, in her children?--oh, yes. But unhappy, just now, because they are unhappy and in trouble. There was a gloom upon Eli Tregarthen's face, a look of pain----" "Of anger, too, and of wonder mixed with it, I daresay. He has been hit by a blow he does not understand." "But we will help them." The Commandant stared into the darkness. There was gloom, too, on his face, had there been light enough to reveal it. "The Lord Proprietor is a very obstinate man." "Yes, yes; but I mean that we will help them to-night. I cannot bear to think of Ruth carrying her trouble home and lying awake with it."