Kate was looking forward with eagerness to his coming. She welcomed him with such a bright smile and showed so much pleasure at seeing him that he thought she could not know of the cloud he was under. The poor girl was sadly altered. Her face was white and wasted, and the dark hollows beneath her eyes testified to the pain she had suffered. But she was getting better now, she said hopefully, though when she would be fit for work again she could not tell. "Mr. Akenside came to see me yesterday," she said. "He says I am not to worry myself about getting back to work directly I come out of the hospital, for he'll allow me ten shillings a week till I am strong. He's a good man, is Mr. Akenside." "Yes, he is," said Reuben. Kate looked at him in surprise. "What! You can say that!" she exclaimed. "I should have thought you'd have been mad with him for accusing you of stealing and turning you off." "Ah! Then you've heard," he said, flashing crimson. "Yes, I've heard, Reuben," she said, "but I don't believe a word of it. You steal the goods, indeed! The idea of such a thing is absurd, and so I told Mr. Akenside." "You told him!" "Yes, I did. I told him I was sure it was a mistake, and that some one has been playing you a mean trick." "And what did he say?" "Oh, he didn't say anything, only that he was very sorry about the whole affair. It was a great grief to him." "I am sure it was," said Reuben. "I wonder you can take it so quietly, Reuben." "What would be the good of storming and fretting over it?" he asked. "That would not alter the facts. Of course I feel it very much." "Have you told your mother?" she asked. "No, I have not," he replied. "I thought it would trouble her so. But I begin to feel as if I must tell her. I don't like keeping things from her." "I'd tell her if I were you," said Kate. "I think she'd like you to tell her. If she's the kind of mother I take her for, she'll not be hard on you." "She will not be hard on me, I know," said Reuben, smiling; "it's only that I don't want her to fret about me." "I should like to know your mother," said Kate. "Well, perhaps you will some day," he replied. "I wish I'd had such a mother," said the girl, a sorrowful look coming into her eyes. "My mother used to drink and beat me. I might have been a better girl if I'd had a different sort of mother." "You'll be a better girl yet, Kate." She shook her head. "Why not?" he said, with some hesitation. "Perhaps that is why the accident came to you—that you might have time to think about your life, and resolve to make it better." "What is the good of thinking?" she said sharply. "I'm sick of thinking." Reuben was silent. "Reuben," she said, after a pause, "they say at the yard that you're religious. Is that true?" "I hope so," he said, colouring. "What is it to be religious?" she asked. Reuben hardly knew how to answer this question. There seemed to him so much involved in it.