Stephen smiled. "I can find you some very respectable authority for that--a good passage in Döllinger--but, I think, don't you, to-morrow? After all, there's such a thing as dinner!" "There is, and it'll be disgracefully overcooked." She rose and came across to him. "Give me your blessing and a kiss, Cousin Stephen. I think I see happiness glimmering a long way off." "I don't think it's ever very far off, if you can see it," said Stephen, and kissed her. Winnie shook her head doubtfully. She had suffered such a tossing and buffeting; the quiet of harbour seemed a distant goal, even if she could now steer a straight course towards it. Her feelings were still on edge; she shrank instinctively from any immediate call to strong emotion. There was another trouble in her mind secret, hardly explicit, but real; if, because of what she had done, Dick Dennehy, still dominated by the convictions which he meant to disobey, should show that he thought she was to be had for the asking, she would resent it bitterly--even to a curt and final refusal. That would be almost as great a failure as Godfrey Ledstone's, and such a rock might still lie in the way of her ship to its harbour. Much turned on Dick Dennehy's bearing towards her. But the days that ensued at Shaylor's Patch were full of healing grace. There was the cordiality of friendship again unclouded, Tora's serenity, Stephen's alert and understanding comradeship. Dick came when his work allowed--it may be surmised that he stretched its allowance to the full--and there were now infinite interest and unbounded fun over furnishing his house. In this work a formula was hit upon, suitable to the state of suspense in which the master's affairs stood. "Eventualities must be borne in view," said Stephen, with treacherous gravity. Dick bore them in view to the full limit of his purse--and how could Winnie refuse a friendly opinion on questions of taste? Nobody mentioned Mrs. Lenoir's furniture, now at the cottage. It was not really very suitable for a country house, and in any case it would be pleasanter to make the fresh start in wholly fresh surroundings. Winnie mentally transmuted it into new frocks, in which shape it would serve a purpose, temporary indeed, but less charged with associations. In no set confession, but in various intimate talks, the whole of her story, and the whole of her own attitude towards it, came to Dick's knowledge. She attempted to conceal neither her passion for Godfrey Ledstone nor the attraction with which at the last Merriam had drawn her. The latter case she was especially anxious that he should understand. "I was angry at first at being thought impossible, but he made me see his point of view, and then I almost fell in love with him," she said, smiling. "Only almost!"