“All sorts of things,” said Alix. She was glad to feel that she could give him fuller relief. “Her great-grandmother’s embroideries and the Stoics and _la Sainte Vierge_.” “_La Sainte Vierge!_” said Giles, and he laughed. Yes, actually, he was speaking with her of the enshrined Toppie and she had made him laugh. “What did you have to say about _la Sainte Vierge_, pray?” “Well,” Alix paused. She saw that she had perhaps taken a wrong turn, but it was best to go on as though she did not think so. “It was of religion and _le Paradis_, you see; and whether the dead are with us here. Do you, too, think that they are, Giles?” “The dead! With us here!—Oh. Yes, I see.” Giles, after his exclamations of surprise, lapsed for a moment into silence. “She must like you very much, Alix, to talk to you about that,” he said presently. “I think she does like me. He liked me. It would always be that for Toppie, wouldn’t it? And then I can give her more about him. We talked of that, too. Things she didn’t know.” She felt Giles’s eyes turn down towards her. He contemplated her as they walked forward. “What sort of things?” “How we met him. How he looked. What we all did together. She loved hearing; but especially that he was happy. And it is that she feels. That he is with her now; and happy. Do you believe it, too?” Giles walked on beside her in the darkness that was not yet quite dark, the light melted into it so softly and went so far. Alix could see Bobby racing on ahead. Jock went just before them, and Amy followed meekly, her nose at Giles’s heels. It was easy to talk together in the melting darkness, and she must have given Giles a great deal to think about, for he said nothing for a long time. Then, as if he brought his thoughts back to her and her question with an effort, he said: “It doesn’t follow, because we’re dead, that we’re happy.” “No; we are not happy in purgatory; and according to the church we must all go to purgatory, unless we have been great saints. She asked me about my religion. And we have purgatory, you see.” “I hope you didn’t say anything about it that may have troubled her.” “Oh, I said nothing at all that troubled her,” Alix assured him. “She did not take purgatory at all seriously.” “Do you?” Giles was smiling a little. How much relief she had given him! “I am afraid not,” Alix owned. “I am afraid I do not take heaven seriously either. But I did not tell her that. It might have grieved her. It always seems to me that we must go out like blown candles, when we are dead. I do not like to think it; but it seems so to me. Does it not to you?” “No; it doesn’t. You are a little pagan, Alix.” “A pagan! Not at all! I am a Catholic. I go to confession once a year.” Giles now laughed out. So much had she relieved him that her unspiritual state roused only mirth in him. “Doesn’t your confessor give you any penances?”