The boy's faith was genuine, she knew, but, remembering what Ralph Dacre had told her on their last night together, she could not stifle the wonder as to whether Tommy had ever grasped the actual quality of his friend's character.

It seemed to her that Tommy's worship was of too humble a species to afford him a very comprehensive view of the object thereof.

She was sure that unlike herself--he would never presume to criticize, would never so much as question any action of Monck's.

Her own conception of the man, she was aware, had altered somewhat since that night.

She regarded him now with a wholly dispassionate interest.