The old-time fires were now banked deep in Daniel's mind under the changes and chances of his life. Jealous he was, since a large power of jealousy pertained to his nature; but for Woodrow he had long since failed to feel anything but the staunch devotion of a brother. Apart from this emotion, awakened by the circumstance of the farmer's personal goodness to him, another far deeper, begot of natural instinct, told him that Hilary was harmless now. Whatever his attitude towards Sarah Jane had been, the very openness of their friendship and the close intimacy of their conversation under his own eyes and before his own ears, had convinced the husband that no shadow of danger existed in their relations. The past in truth was dead enough, and Brendon, a man of clean mind, despite jealousy, made the mistake of supposing that it had never been. He went further and, looking backward, blamed himself for an unseemly attitude, and confessed his sin to his Maker. The past was dead, and neither Hilary nor Sarah Jane, as they walked together at the edge of the winter sea, sought or thought upon its grave. Far otherwise, she found that in the light of his new opinions he could now bitterly mourn the past. On a grey day, when a slight shore wind smoothed the water and the sea was almost of the same colour as the gulls that floated upon it, the man and woman sat under shelter of a red cliff, talked together, and watched Sarah Jane's child gathering cowry shells upon the beach. "How your husband rejoices in his God! Have you marked it, Sarah Jane? Such a trust and such a great, live gratitude underlying his scrupulous obedience." "Well he may be grateful." "I'm only a child in knowledge of the divine idea. He's got far beyond that. And yet--sometimes--I wonder what would happen to his religion--and to us--if he knew." "I don't wonder. I know what would happen. He might be sorry after--when 'twas too late--but while the storm was raging in his heart, God's self wouldn't hold him." "I understand." "And I wouldn't blame him neither. Think--the solid earth giving way under his feet. 'Twould be no less to him." "It's very awful--considered in that manner. I hope you're wrong." "The sea would be weak and the rocks would be soft compared to him." "You've never felt he ought to know?" She gasped and stared. "My God! No, I haven't." "Sometimes I have, Sarah Jane." Her eyes rested on him in profound and horrified amazement. "You can say that! Believing in God has brought you to that! Then I wish you'd never come to it, Hilary Woodrow." "I have almost felt that if I lived very much longer, I might tell him." "You won't live much longer afterwards, if you do. He's said to me in naked words, that 'tis no sin to kill them as have done what we have done. His Bible is behind him." "Nevertheless, if you were dead, I should tell Brendon."