"I was wrong. And you--well, you took too high an estimate of me, and that is the surest way of putting people right. You have no idea how much good stuff there is in that child. She is becoming quite a German scholar; and she has read _Sesame and Lilies_, has been much struck by that quotation from Coventry Patmore, and at the present moment is deep in _Heroes_. What do you say to that?" "Score!" he said quietly. "How did she come to know you?" "Oh, by one of the strange little accidents of life. She has done me a lot of good, too. She is very warm-hearted and impressionable." There was a lull in the conversation. Across the bare fields came the distant roar of the sea. They were still nearly half a mile from home, and a great longing came upon Mona to tell him about her medical studies. Why had she been such an idiot as to make that promise; and, having made it, why had she never asked her cousin to release her from it? She drew a long breath. "My dear," said Rachel's voice behind them, "Mr Stuart wants to have a little conversation with you. Well, doctor, I hope Mistress Hamilton is not worse, that you are here just now?" Mr Stuart's wrongs were avenged. For one moment Dudley thought of protesting, but the exchange of partners was already effected, and he was forced to submit. "Our conversation was left unfinished this morning, Miss Maclean," said the minister. "Was it? I thought we had discussed the subject in all its bearings. You are to be congratulated on the substitute you found." "Am I not?" he answered warmly. "It was all by accident, too, that I met the doctor, and he was very unwilling to come. He had just run down for one day to settle a little business matter for his aunt; but I put him near the end of the programme, so that he might not have to leave the house till near Mrs Hamilton's bedtime." For one day! For one day! The minister sighed. Miss Simpson had left him no choice about "speaking to" her cousin; but he did not feel equal to an encounter to-night; and certainly he could scarcely have found Mona in a less approachable mood. "You are not a Baptist, Miss Maclean?" "No." "Have you studied the subject at all?" "The Gospels are not altogether unfamiliar ground to me;" but her tone was much less aggressive than her words. "And to what conclusion do they bring you?" "I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of the Baptist view; but, Mr Stuart, it all seems to me a matter of so little importance. Surely it is the existence, not the profession, of faith that redeems the world; and the precise mode of profession is of less importance still." "Do you realise what you are saying?" Mr Stuart began to forget his fatigue. "God has declared that one 'mode of profession,' as you call it, is in accordance with His will, but you pay no heed, because your finite reason tells you that it is of so little importance."