She looked at him in confusion, half indignant. "Yes, I can sew." "I hardly like to ask you, but--would you mend this for me? It's the case in which I keep a large volume of engravings; the seams are coming undone, you see." He took up the article in question, which was of glazed cloth, and held it to her. "Have you a needle and thread?" she asked. "Oh yes; here's a complete work-basket." He watched her as she drew off her gloves. "Will you sit here?" He pointed to a chair and a little table. "I shall go on with my work, if you will let me. You don't mind doing this for me?" "Not at all." "Is that chair comfortable?" "Quite." He moved away and seemed to be busy with a picture; it was on an easel so placed that, as he stood before it, he also overlooked Miriam at her needlework. For a time there was perfect quietness. Mallard kept glancing at his companion, but she did not once raise her eyes. At length he spoke. "I have never had an opportunity of asking you what your new impressions were of Bartles." "The place was much the same as I left it," she answered naturally. "And the people? Did you see all your old friends?" "I saw no one except my sister-in-law and her family." "You felt no inclination?" "None whatever." "By-the-bye"--he seemed to speak half absently, looking closely at his work--"hadn't you once some thought of building a large new chapel there?" "I once had." She drew her stitches nervously. "That has utterly passed out of your mind?" "Must it not necessarily have done so?" He stepped back, held his head aside, and examined her thoughtfully. "H'm. I have an impression that you went beyond thinking of it as a possibility. Did you not make a distinct promise to some one or another--perhaps to the congregation?" "Yes, a distinct promise." He became silent; and Miriam, looking up for the first time, asked: "Is it your opinion that the promise is still binding on me?" "Why, I am inclined to think so. Your difficulty is, of course, that you don't see your way to spending a large sum of money to advance something with which you have no sympathy." "It isn't only that I have no sympathy with it," broke from Miriam. "The thought of those people and their creeds is hateful to me. Their so-called religion is a vice. They are as far from being Christians as I am from being a Mahometan. To call them Puritans is the exaggeration of compliment." Mallard watched and listened to her with a smile. "Well," he said, soberly, "I suppose this only applies to the most foolish among them. However, I see that you can hardly be expected to build them a chapel. Let us think a moment.--Are there any public baths in Bartles?" "There were none when I lived there." "The proverb says that after godliness comes cleanliness. Why should you not devote to the establishing of decent baths what you meant to set apart for the chapel? How does it strike you?" She delayed a moment; then-- "I like the suggestion."