“I know your father’s affection for you,” he said seriously, “and I cannot believe that he would express himself as you say he did.”

“I deserved it,” she said.  “I don’t blame him—­nobody could.”

“There must indeed have been some grave reason—­”

“There was—­there was!”

“What was it?”

“Oh, don’t ask me!” she wailed, covering her face.  But, crossing over to her side, he took one of the shielding hands, and holding it tenderly, assured her that she must tell him.  He was her pastor—­he was her best friend; just now he was her champion, prepared to fight her battle, whatever it was.  And to do this successfully it was necessary that he should know all.  In the end she told him—­not all, but the main facts.  He thought it the silliest case of making a mountain of a molehill that he had ever heard of.  He was convinced there was more in the background, to account for the violent emotions aroused—­to account for a good girl leaving a good home in the middle of the night to drown herself.  In his conjectures he made Guthrie Carey the villain of the piece—­the young man who, after creating all the disturbance, had significantly cleared out.  Sailors were an immoral lot —­a sweetheart in every port, as the world knew.  And this fellow—­why, you had only to look at his big, brawny build (Mr Goldsworthy was a small man) to see that he had a brutal nature.

At any rate, the parson was satisfied that the heroine of the story remained a “pure” girl—­foolish, but womanly, and very, very unfortunate.  As she sat weeping by his side, dependent solely upon his protection, he stroked her hand and looked at it—­so shapely and high-bred, the hand of a Pennycuick of the great house—­a hand that would be full of gold some day; and his thoughts were busy.

The beautiful Deborah was gone, and could never have been for him; he had been an idiot to think it.  She had no bent towards religion, was ruinously dressy and extravagant, unhousewifely as a woman could be; but Miss Pennycuick, great lady as she was, could cook and sew, was a master hand with servants and with children, and had never failed of interest in the church—­nor in him.  They had always been the best of friends, he and she; did it not seem that Providence had decreed they should be more?  Why had he been sent to the dam in the nick of time, when he had intended to stay at Redford until morning?  Why was she sitting here now, alone with him in his study, cut off from everybody else in the world?  The hand of the Lord was in it.  Looks were of small account when one considered her rank and the fortune she would inherit; but, of course, he did not admit to himself that he considered any one of these three things; nor that she was of age and her own mistress, although she had just forced the fact upon him when, promising him to make no further attempt upon her life, she announced an intention to find a situation somewhere in which she would be able to