“Say on.”

“I heard about your interview with Father Stafford; what did you say to him?”

“Of course Eugene has told you all I told him?”

“Probably.  I told him to.”

“Well, that’s all.”

“In fact, you told him I wasn’t worth fretting about!”

“Not in that personal way.  I asserted a general principle, and reluctantly denied that you were an exception.”

“I hope you did tell him I wasn’t worth it, and very plainly.  But hasn’t he gone back to his religious work?”

“I think he will.”

“Did you advise him to do that?”

“Yes, certainly.  It’s what he’s most fit for, and I told him so.”

“He spoke to me as if—­as if he had no religion left.”

“Yes, it took him in that way.  He’ll get over that.”

“I think you were wrong to tell him to go back.  Didn’t you encourage him to go back to the work without feeling the religion?”

“Perhaps I did.  Did Eugene tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll never say anything to a lover again.”

“Didn’t you tell him to use his work for personal ends—­for ambition, and so on?”

“Oh, in a way.  I had to stir him up—­I had to tide him over a bad hour.”

“That was very wrong.  It was teaching him to degrade himself.”

“He can pursue his work in perfect sincerity.  I found that out.”

“Can he if he does it with a low motive?”

“My dear girl, whose motives are not mixed?  Whose heart is single?

“His was once!”

“Before he met—­you and me?  I made the best job I could.  I cemented the breakage; I couldn’t undo it.”

“I would rather—­”

“He’d picturesquely drown himself?”

“Oh, no,” she said, with a shudder; “but it lowers my ideal of him.”

“That, considering your position, is not wholly a bad thing.”

“Do you think he’s justified in doing it?”

“To tell the truth, I don’t see quite to the bottom of him.  But he will do great things.”

“Now he is well quit of me?”

Sir Roderick smiled.

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“Then you should have married him, and left Eugene to do the drowning.”

“Do you know, Sir Roderick, I rather doubt if Eugene would have drowned himself?”

“I don’t know; he has very good manners.”

They both laughed.

“But all the same, I am unhappy about Mr. Stafford.”

“Ah, your notions of other people’s morality are too exalted.  I don’t accept responsibility for Stafford.  He would not have followed my suggestion unless the idea had been in germ in his own mind.”