“I regretted my father’s death, for the first time, after reading your letter, for I knew he could have helped you.  But it was very foolish of me, for God is not dead.”

Margaret smiled as she said this, looking full in Euphra’s eyes.  It was a smile of meaning unfathomable, and it quite overcame Euphra.  She had never liked Margaret before; for, from not very obscure psychological causes, she had never felt comfortable in her presence, especially after she had encountered the nun in the Ghost’s Walk, though she had had no suspicion that the nun was Margaret.  A great many of our dislikes, both to persons and things, arise from a feeling of discomfort associated with them, perhaps only accidentally present in our minds the first time we met them.  But this vanished entirely now.

“Do you, then, know God too, Margaret?”

“Yes,” answered Margaret, simply and solemnly.

“Will you tell me about him?”

“I can at least tell you about my father, and what he taught me.”

“Oh! thank you, thank you!  Do tell me about him —­ now.”

“Not now, dear Miss Cameron.  It is late, and you are too unwell to stay up longer.  Let me help you to bed to-night.  I will be your maid.”

As she spoke, Margaret proceeded to put on her dress again, that she might go with Euphra, who had no attendant.  She had parted with Jane, and did not care, in her present mood, to have a woman about her, especially a new one.

“No, Margaret.  You have enough to do without adding me to your troubles.”

“Please, do let me, Miss Cameron.  It will be a great pleasure to me.  I have hardly anything to call work.  You should see how I used to work when I was at home.”

Euphra still objected, but Margaret’s entreaty prevailed.  She followed Euphra to her room.  There she served her like a ministering angel; brushed her hair —­ oh, so gently! smoothing it out as if she loved it.  There was health in the touch of her hands, because there was love.  She undressed her; covered her in bed as if she had been a child; made up the fire to last as long as possible; bade her good night; and was leaving the room, when Euphra called her.  Margaret returned to the bed-side.

“Kiss me, Margaret,” she said.

Margaret stooped, kissed her forehead and her lips, and left her.

Euphra cried herself to sleep.  They were the first tears she had ever shed that were not painful tears.  She slept as she had not slept for months.

In order to understand this change in Euphrasia’s behaviour to Margaret —­ in order, in fact, to represent it to our minds as at all credible —­ we must remember that she had been trying to do right for some time; that Margaret, as the daughter of David, seemed the only attainable source of the knowledge she sought; that long illness had greatly weakened her obstinacy; that her soul hungered, without knowing