“Listen!” she said—­“When Priscilla told me Dad was really dead—­ that he would never get off the bed where he lay so cold and white and peaceful,—­that he would never speak to me again, I said she was wrong—­that it could not be.  I told her he would wake presently and laugh at us all for being so foolish as to think him dead.  Even Hero, our mastiff, does not believe it, for he has stayed all morning by the bedside and no one dare touch him to take him away.  And just now Priscilla has been with me, crying very much—­and she says I must not grieve,—­because Dad is gone to a better world.  Then surely he must be alive if he is able to go anywhere, must he not?  I asked her what she knew about this better world, and she cried again and said indeed she knew nothing except what she had been taught in her Catechism.  I have read the Catechism and it seems to me very stupid and unnatural—­perhaps because I do not understand it.  Can you tell me about this better world?”

Mr. Medwin’s lips moved again.  He cleared his throat.

“I’m afraid,” he observed—­“I’m very much afraid, my poor child, that you have been brought up in a sad state of ignorance.”

Innocent did not like being called a “poor child”—­and she gave a little gesture of annoyance.

“Please do not pity me,” she said, with a touch of hauteur—­“I do not wish that!  I know it is difficult for me to explain things to you as I see them, because I have never been taught religion from a Church.  I have read about the Virgin and Christ and the Saints and all those pretty legends in the books that belonged to the Sieur Amadis—­but he lived three hundred years ago and he was a Roman Catholic, as all those French noblemen were at that time.”

Mr. Medwin stared at her in blank bewilderment.  Who was the Sieur Amadis?  She went on, heedless of his perplexity.

“Dad believed in a God who governed all things rightly,—­I have heard him say that God managed the farm and made it what it is.  But he never spoke much about it—­and he hated the Church—­”

The reverend gentleman interrupted her with a grave uplifted hand.

“I know!” he sighed—­“Ah yes, I know!  A dreadful thing!—­a shocking attitude of mind!’ I fear he was not saved!”

She looked straightly at him.

“I don’t see what you mean,” she said—­“He was quite a good man—­”

“Are you sure of that?” and Mr. Medwin fixed his shallow brown eyes searchingly upon her.  “Our affections are often very deceptive—­”

A flush of colour overspread her pale cheeks.

“Indeed I am very sure!” she answered, steadily—­“He was a good man.  There was never a stain on his character—­though he allowed people to think wrong things of him for my sake.  That was his only fault.”

He was silent, waiting for her next word.

“I think perhaps I ought to tell you,” she continued—­“because then you will be able to judge him better and spare his memory from foolish and wicked scandal.  He was not my father—­I was only his adopted daughter.”