Susie took no independent action in the matter. She left it now to him, as she had left it all her life to her mother, feeling such questions beyond her, she who was so ready and so full of active service in the practical ways of life. She left the decision to those who were better able to make it, but with an altogether new and delightful confidence such as she had never known before; for Mr. Cattley was far more merciful than anyone who in Susie’s experience had ever touched this painful matter. Mrs. Sandford had desired nothing so much as never to hear the name of the husband through whom she had suffered so many humiliations and miseries again; but Mr. Cattley would not permit the natural right to be shaken off, or the claims of blood abandoned. Susie turned to him with a gratitude which was beyond words in her mild eyes. Her mother’s panic and loathing were cruel, but he was ever kind and just. She looked at him with that sense that he was the best of created beings, which it is so expedient for a wife to possess. Even love does not always carry this confidence with it, but Susie was one of the women who will always, to the last verge of possibility, give that adoration and submission to the man upon whom their affections rest. And happily she had found one by whom, as far as that is possible to humanity, they were fully deserved. They set out together in the morning sunshine, after many arguments and consultations with Mrs. Sandford, to seek John in his lodgings and settle if possible upon some common course of action. But, though so many painful questions were involved, these two people were able to dismiss them as they walked along together. They seemed to step into a land of gentle happiness the moment they were alone with each other, though in the midst of the crowded streets. They went across the bridge making momentary involuntary pauses to look at the traffic on the river, forgetting that they ought not to have had any attention to spare for such outside matters. Though Susie was entirely town-bred, they looked what they were henceforward to be--a country pair, a rural couple come up from their vicarage to see the world. There ought not to have been so much ease, so much sweetness in the morning to May the convict’s daughter: and yet she could not help it, there it was. And to Mr. Cattley, who had always been accustomed to a somewhat secondary place, the sensation of being supreme was strangely delightful. A woman who can give that unquestioning admiration, that boundless trust, is always sweet. It is not every woman that can do it, however godlike may be the man: and the curate did not believe that he was godlike. But yet it was very delightful that she should think so. It was a surprise to him to receive this tender homage; but it was very sweet.