“He told you what he knew,” said Christine in a broken voice. “He could not tell you of my interview with Sir Roderick.” She paused for a minute, then the pent-up torrent of words broke forth. “I have heard of women, yes, and of men, too, refusing to be separated from a guilty partner; but there must at least be a genuine repentance to make such a plan even moral. There was none with Sir Roderick. He was vexed at the discovery, but he made light of the sin itself. In my presence he laughed over the affair. The house seemed like hell. I could not have stayed in it another hour!” The look of shrinking horror in her face tortured Macneillie, who could so well understand how her whole being recoiled from the foul atmosphere that had surrounded her. It was because he understood how she felt herself degraded by all she had lived through that he intuitively stretched out his hand for hers, and held it in a strong, firm clasp. “Do not dwell on all this,” he said, “but tell me how I can help you.” His quiet, tender voice, the reverence of his manner quickly soothed her. She looked up into his face, and by that mere look seemed to draw in endless stores of strength and comfort. “Do you know,” she exclaimed with seeming irrelevance, “what Ralph Denmead said about the day you found him in the Pass of Leny, when he was lying there ill and half-starved, and looked up to see you bending over him? He said it was like looking up into the face of the Christ!” “Poor boy!” said Macneillie. “He was in an awful plight, no one with a grain of kindliness in his nature could have passed him by. He has made me his debtor for life now, though; it is through him that I have met you to-day.” “We little thought,” said Christine, “that those two children in St. James’s Park, playing with their boat, would have anything to do with our future. How is it, though, that you are grateful to him for bringing about this meeting? It is I who am grateful to him. But you who have so much to forgive--you who have avoided me all these years----?” “I dared not seek you out,” said Macneillie, “our paths parted naturally, and it was safer so. What could I have done for you then? But now all is different. Are none of your people coming to be with you?” “There is no one to come. As you heard, I daresay, my father died four years ago.” “Yes, I saw the notice in the papers,” said Macneillie.