She was silent for a long time, until she came to perceive that the silence meant far more than she intended. That was why she cried rather quickly: “You have seen him--Claude--you have conversed with him?” “Yes. He came to see me yesterday,” replied Sir Percival. “Great heavens! What that man has gone through. He deserves his happiness--the greatest happiness that any man dare hope for.” “Ah, I meant that he should be so happy,” she cried, and there was something piteous in her tone. “And you will make him happy,” said her companion. “When a woman makes up her mind on this particular point, a man cannot help himself. His most strenuous efforts in the other direction count for nothing. He will be made happy in spite of himself.” She turned her eyes upon him inquiringly. “You heard him speak--you heard the way he talks on that terrible matter?” “Yes; that was how it came about that he visited me. He wanted me to tell him all that I knew on the subject--he was anxious to have the scene in the Assize Court described to him by some new voice. He wished to know if I signed a petition for the reprieve of the murderer, and when I told him no petition had been signed, but that the Home Secretary had reprieved the man after, I supposed, consultation with the judge who tried the case, and with the law officers for the Crown, he seemed to be overcome with astonishment and indignation.” “That's The most terrible thing,” said Agnes, with an involuntary shudder. “He regards the granting of his life to that man as a worse crime than the one for which he was condemned. I cannot understand that hunger for revenge--that thirst for the blood of a fellow-creature.” “You cannot understand it because you are a Christian woman,” said Percival. “But for my part I must say that I have the widest sympathy for all people; and no passion, however strange it may seem to others, is quite unintelligible to me. I have lived long enough in queer places to have become impressed with the fact that the civilisation which we profess to regard as a part of ourselves is but the thinnest of veneers--nay, of varnishes. The best of us is but a savage with all the passions--all the nature--of a savage glowing beneath a coat of varnish. My dear Miss Mowbray, we should pray that we may not find ourselves in the midst of such circumstances as put a strain on our civilisation--upon our Christianity.” She gave another little shudder, she knew not why, and turned her wondering eyes upon him.