“Die!  Why, you old love, how could you get that notion into your head?”

“Because,” he answered, “I am so very, very happy—­too happy.  I have had a great deal more, dear, than I was ever entitled to in this life.  When I sent you away and went to Rome, I feared I had given you up forever; and, behold, here I am, with the silver hairs coming—­a priest with all the consolations that a priest can have, and yet I have a daughter, too.”  And smiling in his own winning way, he added, “And such a daughter!—­even if she is really only a niece.”

Ruth laughed softly and drew his arm around her as she laid hers lightly on his shoulder.

“I am afraid,” she said, “that the daughter never deserved the kind of a daddy she has had—­the only one she ever knew.  If Carlotta—­”

But Father Murray interrupted hastily as he observed the touch of sorrow in her voice.

“Do not think of her to-day, my dear,” he said.  “Put her out of your mind.  You have prayed for her, and so have I. It is all we can do, and we can always pray.  Forget her until to-morrow and then—­never forget.”

Seeing that the sad look had not been entirely chased away, he added, cheerfully: 

“Now, before I go back to the Bishop and my friends, I want to ask you one serious question.”

Ruth looked up with sudden interest.  “As many as you like.”

He took her hands in his and looked keenly into her face.  “It was always a mystery to me,” he said, “how you and Mark fell in love with each other so promptly.  He saw you coming out of the tree-door, then he met you once or twice, and after that he lost his head; and you—­minx!—­you lost yours.  I have often heard of love at first sight, but this is the only example I have ever seen of it.  Explain, please, for the ways of youth are strange, and even yet—­old as I am—­I have not learned to understand them.”

“Why,” she answered, “I had met him long before.  Don’t you remember that day in London when you said good-bye to your congregation?  Have you forgotten that Ruth was there?” she asked archly, half reproachfully.

Father Murray’s eyes lit up.  “You remembered, then!  Yes, yes.  He told me of the little girl.  And you really remembered?”

He was standing in front of her now, holding her at arm’s length and looking straight at her glowing face.

“I remembered.  I knew that day that you were suffering, and though I was only eight years old, I cried for you while I was sitting all alone in the big pew.  He passed me, and smiled.  When he came out again, he saw that I was still crying.  I asked him about you, and he said something that went straight to my little girl’s heart:  he praised you.  To soothe me, he took me in his arms and—­well,” she added blushing, “he kissed me.  I fell in love with that big man right there; I never lost the memory of him or that kiss.  When I saw him here at Killimaga, and when he told me what I wanted so badly to hear, I knew he was worth waiting for.  If you want to know more about the ways of youth, daddy dear,” she continued saucily, “only know that I would have waited a century—­if I could have lived so long, and if I had had to wait.”