"No," said the Major, grimly. "In my opinion she went further than there was any particular necessity for her to do. She knew the man's shortcomings when she was engaged to him—and she should have stuck to him. You don't condemn any one for a single slip in your country, Miss Heathcote?"
Barbara made no answer, for this, it seemed, was just what she had done, but Hetty, who had been watching her, laughed.
"You couldn't expect her to admit that their standard in Canada is lower than ours," she said.
The Major appeared disconcerted. "That is not exactly what I mean. They have a little more charity yonder, and, in some respects, a good deal more sense. From one or two cases I am acquainted with they are, in fact, usually willing to give the man who trips another chance instead of falling upon him mercilessly before he can get up."
"Still you haven't told us yet what Reggie Ferris did."
Major Hume laughed as he turned away. "I am," he said, "quite aware of it."
He left them, and Hetty smiled as she said, "The Major has not infrequently been imposed upon, but nothing will disabuse him of his cheerful belief in human nature, and I must admit that he is quite as often right as more censorious people. There was Lily Harland who gave Reggie Ferris up, which, of course, was probably only what he could have expected under the circumstances, but Reggie, it appears, is wiping out the past, and I have reasons for surmising that she has been sorry ever since. Nobody but my father and his mother ever hear from him now, and if that hurts Lily she has only herself to blame. She had her opportunity of showing what faith she had in the man, and can't expect to get another just because she would like it."
She wondered why the warm color had crept into her companion's face, but Barbara said nothing, and vacantly watched the road that wound up through the meadows out of the valley, until a moving object appeared where it crossed the crest of the hill. In the meanwhile her thoughts were busy, for the Major's suggestive little story had not been without its effect on her, and the case of Reggie Ferris was, it seemed, remarkably similar to that of a certain Canadian flume-builder. The English soldier and Grant Devine had both been charitable, but she and the girl who was sorry ever since had shown themselves merciless, and there was in that connection a curious significance in the fact that Reggie Ferris, who was now brilliantly blotting out the past, wrote nobody but his mother and the man who had given him what the latter termed another chance. Barbara remembered the afternoon when she waited at the window and Brooke, who, she fancied, could have done so had he wished, had not come up from the depôt. She could not ignore the fact that this had since occasioned her a vague uneasiness.
In the meanwhile the moving object had been growing larger, and when it reappeared lower down the road resolved itself into a gardener who had been despatched to the nearest village on a bicycle.
"We will wait until Tom brings in the letters," said Hetty.