And he knew what that kind of manners was built on--just decent faithfulness and honest feeling.

He didn't say it in so many words, of course, but as Dowie listened it was exactly as if he said it in gentleman's language.
England was full of strange and cruel tragedies.

And they were not all tragedies of battle and sudden death.

Many of them were near enough to seem even worse--if worse could be.

Dowie had heard some hints of them and had wondered what the world was coming to.