John Ward, Preacher

Helen's desire to get back to John made her decide to start on Monday, instead of waiting until Wednesday, when the fortnight she had planned for her visit ended.

"I must go," she said, smiling at Dr. Howe's railings. "I cannot stay away from home any longer. And you'll come soon, Lois, dear!"

Even daily letters from John had not saved her from homesickness. They were a comfort, even though they were filled with pleadings and prayers that, for her soul's sake, she would see the error of her belief. Such tenderness struggled through the pages of argument, Helen would lay her cheek against them, and say softly, "I'll come home to you soon, dear."

One of these last letters had entreated her to write immediately upon its receipt, and answer it point by point. She did so, saying at the last, "Now let us drop the whole subject. I will never, as long as I have reason, believe this terrible doctrine,—never. So why need we ever speak of it again? I know it is your fear of eternity which leads you to try to make me believe it, but, dearest, if eternity depends on this, it is already settled; let us just be glad together while we can, in this beautiful time. Oh, I shall soon be home; I can think of nothing else."

And she counted the hours until she could start. When the morning came, with its clear June sky, and great white clouds lying dreamily behind the hills, her face was running over with gladness, in spite of her sympathy for Lois's grief.

"How happy you look!" Lois said wistfully, as she sat watching Helen put on her bonnet before the swinging mirror in its white and gold frame, on her dressing-table.

Helen had not known how her eyes were smiling, and she looked with quick compunction at Lois's white face. "I shall see John so soon," she answered contritely. "I can't help it."

"I shall miss you awfully," Lois went on, leaning her forehead against the edge of the bureau, and knotting the long linen fringe of the cover with nervous little fingers.

"But think how soon I'll have you in Lockhaven, dear; and you will be a little stronger then, and happier, too," Helen said, brightly.

For Lois was so worn and tired that a less active person would have called herself ill; as it was, she was not able to bear the long ride to Mercer and back, and Helen was to go alone, for Dr. Howe had to go out of Ashurst a little way, to perform a marriage ceremony.

"You'll have rain before the day is over, my dear," he said, as he put her into the carriage, "and that will make it better traveling, no dust. It's a shame that I should have to go in the other direction. Why couldn't those people get married to-morrow instead of to-day, I should like to know? Or why couldn't you stay twenty-four hours longer? Could not stand it to be away from home another minute! Well, well, that's right,—that's the way it should be. Hope Ward is as anxious to get you back as you are to run off and leave us; perhaps he doesn't want you, young lady." The rector laughed at Helen's confident look. "I don't half like your going to Mercer by yourself," he added.

"Oh, I shall get along very well," said Helen cheerily. "I have no doubt there'll be a letter for me from John at the post-office, and I will get it as we go through the village. I'll have that to read."

"It will hardly last all the way to Lockhaven," Lois commented.

"Oh, yes, it will," answered Helen, with a ripple of joy in her tone, which, for pure gladness, was almost laughter. "You don't know, Lois!"

Lois smiled drearily; she was sitting on the steps, her arms crossed listlessly on her knees, and her eyes fixed in an absent gaze on the garden.

"Here's Giff," Helen continued, arranging her traveling-bag and some books on the opposite seat of the carriage. "I shall just have time to say good-by to him."

"That is what I came for," Gifford said, as he took her hand a moment. "I will bring Lois safely to you in a fortnight."

Mrs. Dale was on the porch, and Sally and Jean stood smiling in the doorway; so, followed by hearty good-bys and blessings, with her hands full of flowers, and the sunshine resting on her happy face and glinting through her brown hair, Helen drove away.

Mr. Dale was at the post-office, and came out to hand her the letter she expected.

"So you're off?" he said, resting his hand on the carriage door, and looking at her with a pleasant smile. "You've made me think of the starling, this last week,—you remember the starling in the Bastile? 'I can't get out,' says the starling,—'I can't get out.' Well, I'm glad you want to get out, my dear. My regards to your husband." He stood watching the carriage whirl down the road, with a shade of envy on his face.

When Helen had gone, and the little group on the porch had scattered, Lois rose to go into the house, but Gifford begged her to wait.

"You stay too much in-doors," he remonstrated; "it has made your face a little white. Do come into the garden awhile."

"She does look badly," said Mrs. Dale from the top of the steps, contemplating her niece critically. "I declare it puts me out of all patience with her, to see her fretting in this way."

Mrs. Dale was experiencing that curious indignation at a friend's suffering which expends itself upon the friend; in reality her heart was very tender towards her niece. "She misses the Forsythes," Mrs. Dale continued. "She's been so occupied with Arabella Forsythe since the accident, she feels as if she had nothing to do."

There was no lack of color in Lois's face now, which did not escape Gifford's eye.

"Go, now, and walk with Gifford," said Mrs. Dale coaxingly, as though she were speaking to a child.

Lois shook her head, without looking at him. "I don't believe I will, if you don't mind."

But Mrs. Dale was not satisfied. "Oh, yes, you'd better go. You've neglected the flowers dreadfully, I don't know how long it is since your father has had any fresh roses in the library."

"I'll get the garden scissors," Gifford pleaded; "it won't take long just to cut some roses."

"Well," Lois said languidly.

Gifford went through the wide cool hall for the shears and the basket of scented grass for the posies; he knew the rectory as well as his own home. Mrs. Dale had followed him, and in the shadowy back hall she gave him a significant look.

"That's right, cheer her up. Of course she feels their going very much. I must say, it does not show much consideration on the part of the young man to leave her at such a time,—I don't care what the business is that calls him away! Still, I can't say that I'm surprised. I never did like that Dick, and I have always been afraid Lois would care for him."

"I think it is a great misfortune," Gifford said gravely.

"Oh, well, I don't know," demurred Mrs. Dale. "It is an excellent match; and his carelessness now—well, it is only to be expected from a young man who would carry his mother off from—from our care, to be looked after by a hired nurse. He thought," said Mrs. Dale, bridling her head and pursing up her lips, "that a lot of 'fussy old women' couldn't take care of her. Still, it will be a good marriage for Lois. I'm bound to say that, though I have never liked him."

The young people did not talk much as they went down into the garden. Lois pointed out what roses Gifford might cut, and, taking them from him, put them into the little basket on her arm.

"How I miss Helen!" she said at last.

"Yes, of course," he answered, "but think how soon you'll see her in Lockhaven;" and then he tried to make her talk of the lumber town, and the people, and John Ward. But he had the conversation quite to himself. At last, with a desperate desire to find something in which she would be interested, he said, "You must miss your friends very much. I'm sorry they are gone."

"My friends?"

"Yes, Mr. Forsythe—and his mother."

"Oh, no!" she answered quickly.

"No?" Gifford said, wondering if she were afraid he had discovered her secret, and hastening to help her conceal it. "Oh, of course you feel that the change will be good for Mrs. Forsythe?"

"Oh, I hope it will!" cried Lois, fear trembling in the earnestness of her voice.

Gifford had stepped over the low box border to a stately bunch of milk-white phlox. "Let's have some of this," he said, beginning to cut the long stems close to the roots; "it always looks so well in the blue jug."

His back was toward her, and perhaps that gave him the courage to say, with a suddenness that surprised himself, "Ah—does Mrs. Forsythe go abroad with her son?"

Even as he spoke he wondered why he had said it; certainly it was from no interest in the sick lady. Was it because he hoped to betray Lois into some expression of opinion concerning Mr. Forsythe's departure? He despised himself if it were a test, but he did not stop to follow the windings of his own motives.

"Abroad?" Lois said, in a quick, breathless way. "Does he go abroad?"

Gifford felt her excitement and suspense without seeing it, and he began to clip the phlox with a recklessness which would have wrung Dr. Howe's soul.

"I—I believe so. I supposed you knew it."

"How do you know it?" she demanded.

"He told me," Gifford admitted.

"Are you sure?" she said in a quavering voice.

Gifford had turned, and was stepping carefully back among the plants, sinking at every step into the soft fresh earth. He did not look at her, as he reached the path.

"Are you sure?" she said again.

"Yes," he answered reluctantly, "yes, he is going; I don't know about his mother."

Here, to his dismay, he saw the color come and go on Lois's sad little face, and her lip tremble, and her eyes fill, and then, dropping her roses, she began to cry heartily.

"Oh, Lois!" he exclaimed, aghast, and was at her side in a moment. But she turned away, and, throwing her arm about an old locust-tree in the path, laid her cheek against the rough bark, and hid her eyes.

"Oh, don't cry, Lois," he besought her. "What a brute I was to have told you in that abrupt way! Don't cry."

"Oh, no," she said, "no, no, no! you must not say that—you—you do not understand"—

"Don't," he said tenderly, "don't—Lois!"

Lois put one hand softly on his arm, but she kept her face covered. Gifford was greatly distressed.

"I ought not to have told you in that way,"—Lois shook her head,—"and—and I have no doubt he—they'll come to Ashurst and tell you of their plans before they start."

Lois seemed to listen.

"Yes," Gifford continued, gaining conviction from his desire to help her, "of course he will return."

Lois had ceased to cry. "Do—do you think so?"

"I'm sure of it," Gifford answered firmly; and even as he spoke, he had a mental vision, in which he saw himself bringing Dick Forsythe back to Ashurst, and planting him forcibly at Lois's feet. "I ought to have considered," he went on, looking at her anxiously, "that in your exhausted state it would be a shock to hear that your friends were going so far away; though Europe isn't so very far, Lois. Of course they'll come and tell you all about it before they go; probably they had their own reasons for not doing it before they left Ashurst,—your health, perhaps. But no doubt, no possible doubt, that Mr. Forsythe, at least, will come back here to make any arrangements there may be about his house, you know."

This last was a very lame reason, and Gifford felt it, for the house had been closed and the rent paid, and there was nothing more to do; but he must say something to comfort her.

Lois had quite regained her composure; even the old hopeless look had returned.

"I beg your pardon," she said. "I am very—foolish. I don't know why I am so weak—I—I am still anxious about Mrs. Forsythe, you know; the long journey for her"—

"Of course," he assured her. "I know how it startled you."

She turned to go into the house, and Gifford followed her, first picking up the neglected roses at her feet.

"I do not know what you think of me," she said tremulously.

"I only think you are not very strong," he answered tenderly, yet keeping his eyes from her averted face; he felt that he had seen more than he had a right to, already. His first thought was to protect her from herself; she must not think she had betrayed herself, and fancy that Gifford had guessed her engagement. He still hoped that, for the sake of their old friendship, she would freely choose to tell him. But most of all, she should not feel that she had shown despairing love for a man who neglected and slighted her, and that her companion pitied her. He even refused to let his thought turn to it.

"You must not mind me, Lois. I quite understand—the suddenness of hearing even the most—indifferent thing is enough to upset one when one is so tired out with nursing, and all that. Don't mind me."

"You are so good, Gifford," she said, with a sudden shy look from under her wet lashes, and a little lightening of her heavy eyes.

It was at least a joy to feel that he could comfort her, even though it cut his own heart to do so, and the pain of it made him silent for a few minutes.

When they had reached the steps, Lois's face had settled into its white apathy, which was almost despair. "I think I'll go in, Giff," she said. "I am so tired."

"Won't you fix the roses?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, I—I don't care anything about them; Sally can do it. Just leave them on the steps."

She gave him a wan little smile, and went into the house. Gifford stood in the sunshine, with the roses and the white phlox, and looked after her retreating figure. But in spite of his heartache, he would not leave the flowers to die, so he went hunting about for something to put them in, and finding the India china punch-bowl, with its soft blues and greens of enamel, and twists of roses and butterflies over groups of tiny mandarins, he brought it out, and laid his flowers in it, a little clumsily, perhaps, and heedless that some of the stems stuck out; but as he forgot the water, this did not so much matter. Then he carried it into the hall, and put it down on the table under the square window, and plodded home alone.

The noon sunshine poured hot and bright through the little panes of glass, and when Lois, later in the day, found the withered, drooping roses and the hanging heads of the white phlox, she felt they were only in keeping with all the rest of life.

Even the sparkling day had darkened, and Dr. Howe's prophecy of rain had been fulfilled.

It grew quite chilly towards dusk, which gave Dr. Howe an excuse for putting a match to the dusty pile of logs in the library fireplace. He liked the snap and glow of the flames, and did not object to the mild, soft heat; so he sat there long after Lois had gone wearily up-stairs to bed, and the rectory was full of drowsy silence.

Outside, the tree which leaned toward the house bent and swayed in the wind, and scratched against the weather boards, while the rain came in a quick dash against the glass, and then seemed to listen for an answer, and waver, and retreat, and go sweeping down among the bushes in the garden.

The rector had not lighted his lamp; the faint, still light from two candles in the row of silver candlesticks on the tall mantel was all he wanted until he began to read. He was ready to do that later. A church journal, with an account of a quarrel between a High-Church clergyman and his Low-Church Bishop, was within reach of his hand, and the "Three Guardsmen," in a ragged yellow cover, was astride his knee, but now he was content to sit and think. He made a prosperous and comfortable figure, reflected in the dim, dark mirror over the mantel, where the candles shone back like stars in a pool at night. A white moth had found its way into the house, and fluttered back and forth between the candles, its little white ghost following it in the glass. The rector watched it placidly. Even his thoughts were tranquil and comfortable, for he was equally indifferent both to the bishop and his rebellious clergyman. There was a cup of mulled wine simmering by the brass dogs, and the fire sputtered and sung softly. Max, with his nose between his paws, watched it with sleepy eyes. The little tinge of melancholy in Dr. Howe's face did not interfere with a look of quiet satisfaction with life; perhaps, indeed, it gave an added charm to his ruddy, handsome features. At first he had been thinking of Mr. Denner; not of that distressing day when he had told him of approaching death,—that was too painful for such an hour, he meant to meet it later,—but of the sad vacancy the little gentleman had left.

Perhaps the consciousness of the thought from which he was hiding turned his mind to Helen, and here all was satisfactory. There had been no discussion, none of the theological argument that her letters had given him cause to dread, which had made him feel a quiver in that solid rock of custom that a long-quieted earthquake had once shaken to its centre. He felt in a vague way that his niece was not quite so near and familiar, and there was a subtile reserve, which did not show itself in words or any check in the expression of her love, but which was certainly there. Yet he did not analyze it; he did not care to realize that perhaps she feared to speak of what was so real to her, because she knew he had no help for her. Dr. Howe would have perfectly understood that this must inevitably create a distance between them; but it would have been extremely painful to have let this creep into his thoughts, just as it would have been painful for him had she spoken of it; so he preferred to say to himself that all was well. The child had gotten over all that foolishness; he would have disliked to find fault with her, as he must have done had she mentioned it; he was glad it was all forgotten. He was glad, too, Lois was going to Lockhaven to see her. Poor little Lois! Ah, poor Denner! Well, well, there are some very sad things in life. And he lifted his mug of mulled wine, and drank thoughtfully, and then crossed his legs again on the fender; and the rain beat and sobbed outside.

He wondered if Lois's pale face had any connection with the departure of the Forsythes. Mrs. Dale had hinted at it, though she had not dared to quote Arabella Forsythe's triumphant secret. Then he remembered how disappointed he had been that nothing came of that affair. But on the whole it would have been very lonely at the rectory without Lois. It was just as well. Dr. Howe generally found that most things were "just as well." Indeed, he had been heard to say that, with a good digestion, any sorrow showed itself to have been best inside three years. Perhaps he had forgotten for the moment that he was a widower; but at all events, he said it.

So he blew his logs to a brighter blaze, and drank the rest of his mulled wine, stirring it round and round for the nutmeg and spice, and said to himself, listening to the beat of the rain as he pulled Max's silky ears, that it was the worst June storm he remembered. Perhaps that was why he did not hear the front door open and close with a bang against the gust which tried to force its way into the house, blowing out the hall lights, and sending a dash of rain into Sally's face.

"Lord!" cried Sally, with a shrill scream, "it's Miss Helen's ghost!"

The face she saw was ghost-like indeed. It was wet and streaming with rain, and the dark eyes were strange and unseeing.

"Do not tell Miss Lois I am here," the pale lips said. "Where is my uncle? I must see him."

Sally could only point speechlessly to the library door. Helen went swiftly towards it. She seemed to hesitate a moment before she entered, and then she opened it, and closed it again behind her, standing silently in front of it.

Dr. Howe looked up calmly, expecting to see Sally; but the sight of that still figure, with eyes which looked at him with a curious fixedness, sent the color from his face in one moment of actual fright. "Helen!" he cried, springing to his feet. "Good heavens! child, what is it? What is the matter?"

"I have come back," she answered, uttering each word with that peculiar slowness one notices in a very sick person, who tries to hear himself speak.

Dr. Howe had turned to light the lamp, but his hand shook, and Helen absently steadied the shade until he raised the wick, and then fumbled for his glasses, and turned to look at her. It was a relief to hear her speak.

"My dear," he said, his voice still tremulous, "you alarmed me terribly. Why, how wet you are!" He had laid his hand upon her shoulder to help her take off her wraps. "Bless my soul, child, you're drenched! Did you come in an open carriage? But why are you here? Did you miss your train?"

Even as he spoke, before she silently shook her head, he knew she would have been back by noon had she missed her train.

Max had come and sniffed suspiciously at her skirts before he recognized her, and then he rubbed his head against her knee, and reached up to be patted. She let her hand rest a moment on his head, and then with cold, stiff fingers tried to help her uncle take off her cloak, and lift her bonnet from her dripping hair. She made no effort to wipe the rain from her face, and Dr. Howe, with his big handkerchief, tried clumsily to do it for her.

"What is the matter, my dear?" the rector was saying nervously. "Is anything wrong with Mr. Ward? Have you had bad news? Tell me, my darling; you distress me by your silence."

Helen's throat seemed dry, and she moved her lips once or twice before the words came. "I have come back," she answered slowly, looking with absent eyes at Max, who was furtively licking her hand. "I have had a letter from John. So I have come back. I am very tired."

She looked wearily around, and swayed a little from side to side. Dr. Howe caught her in his arms. "My dear," he said, in a frightened voice, "my dear—you are very ill. I'll fetch Jean—I'll send for Adele!"

Helen laid her shaking hand upon his arm. "No, no,—I am not ill. I am only tired. I walked from Mercer, I think; I don't quite remember. Please do not call any one, uncle."

In spite of the wildness of her words, it was not a delirious woman who was speaking to him, as he had thought. "Try and tell me, then, what it all means," he said; "or stay,—first let me get you a glass of wine."

He went shuffling along in his slippers to the dining-room, and came back with a wineglass and the little fat decanter, with the silver collar clinking about its neck. He filled the glass, and held it to her lips, and then stood and looked at her as she drank, his lower lip thrust out, and perplexity and anxiety written on every feature.

Helen handed the glass back to him, and rose. "Thank you, uncle Archie," she said. "I—I must go up-stairs now. I am tired."

"But, my dear child," he remonstrated, "my dear Helen, you must tell me what all this means, first."

She looked at him entreatingly. "Not now,—oh, not to-night."

"But, Helen," he said, "I can't be kept in suspense, you know."

He tried to put his arm about her, but she pushed it a little aside and shook her head. "I will tell you," she said, while Dr. Howe, not understanding his repulse, stood with parted lips and frowning eyebrows, polishing his glasses on the skirt of his dressing-gown. Helen rubbed her hand across her forehead.

"I am a little confused," she began, "but—there is not much to say. John has written that I must not come back to Lockhaven. I shall never see my husband again, uncle Archie," she added piteously.

"Why—why—why!" cried Dr. Howe. "Bless my soul, what's all this? Mr. Ward says my niece is not to return to her husband! Oh, come, now, come!"

"Need we say anything more to-night?" Helen said. "I—I cannot talk."

Nothing could have shown Dr. Howe's affection for his niece more than the way in which he said, looking at her in silence for a moment, "My child, you shall do just what you please. Come up-stairs now, and get to bed. It will be a mercy if you're not laid up with a cold to-morrow. Would you rather not see Lois? Well, then, Jean shall come and make you comfortable."

But Dr. Howe, shuffling over the bare stairs, and fuming to himself, "What's all this! Nonsense, I say, perfect nonsense!" could not fail to arouse Lois, and she called out drowsily, "Good-night, father, dear. Is anything the matter?"

"Nothing,—nothing!" cried the rector testily. "Go to sleep. Come, Helen, take my arm, and let me help you."

"Helen!" Lois exclaimed, wide awake, and springing from her bed to rush to her cousin. "What is it?" she gasped, as she caught sight of the group.

"Nothing, I tell you," said the rector. "Go to bed at once; you'll take cold."

But Helen, seeing the distressed face, put her hands on Lois's shoulders, and pushed her gently back into her room. "I had to come back, Lois," she said. "I will tell you why, to-morrow. I am too tired, now. Don't speak to me, please, dear."

The rector had hurried down the entry to find Jean, who indeed needed no rousing, for Sally had told her who had come. "Let me know when Miss Helen is comfortable," he said.

And when the old woman, awed by Helen's still, white face, told him his niece was in bed, he came up again, holding the decanter by the throat, and begging her to take another glass of wine. But she only turned her head away and asked to be alone. She would not say anything more, and did not seem to hear his assurances that it would be "all right in the morning," and that "she must not worry."

It was the kindest thing to her, but it was very hard for the rector to go down to his library still in ignorance. The spell of peace had been rudely broken, and his fire was out. He lifted Helen's bonnet, still heavy with rain, and laid it on the cloak she had thrown across a chair, and then stood and looked at them as though they could explain the mystery of her return. The tall clock on the stairs struck eleven, and outside the storm beat and complained.

Dr. Howe was up early the next morning. He went through the silent house before Sally had crept yawning from her room, and, throwing open the doors at each end of the hall, let a burst of sunshine and fresh wind into the darkness and stillness. Then he went out, and began to walk up and down the porch as a sort of outlet to his impatience. Over and over he said, "What can it be?" Indeed, Dr. Howe had asked himself that question even in his dreams. "I hope there's no woman at the bottom of it," he thought. "But no; Ward's a fool, but he is a good man."

He stopped once, to lift a trailing vine and twist it about a support. The rain had done great damage in the night: the locust blossoms had been torn from the trees, and the lawn was white with them; the soft, wet petals of the climbing roses were scattered upon the path by the side of the house; and a long branch of honeysuckle, wrenched from its trellis, was prone upon the porch. These small interests quieted the rector, and he was able soon to reason himself into the belief that his niece's return was a trifling affair, perhaps a little uncomfortable, and certainly silly, but he would soon make it all right; so that when he saw her coming slowly down-stairs, with Lois creeping after her, almost afraid to speak, he was able to greet her very tranquilly.

"Are you rested, my child? After breakfast, we'll have a good talk, and everything shall be straightened out."

Breakfast was a dreary affair. Helen's abstraction was too profound for her to make even the pretense of eating. Once or twice, when Lois's voice pierced through the clouds and reached her heart, she looked up, and tried to reply. But they were all glad when it was over, and the rector put his arm gently over his niece's shoulders, and drew her into the library.

"If any one comes, Lois," he said, "you had better just say Helen changed her mind about going yesterday, and has come back for a few days."

"No," interrupted Helen slowly. "You had better say what is the truth, Lois. I have come back to Ashurst to stay."

"Now, my dear," remonstrated the rector when they were in the library, and he had shut the door, "that is really very unwise. These little affairs, little misunderstandings, are soon cleared up, and they are even forgotten by the people most interested in them. But outsiders never forget. So it is very unwise to speak of them."

Helen had seated herself on the other side of his writing-table, brushing away the litter of papers and unanswered letters, so that she could lean her elbow on it, and now she looked steadily across at him.

"Uncle," she said, calmly "you do not know. There is no misunderstanding. It is just what I told you last night: he thinks it best that I should leave him indefinitely. I know that it is forever. Yes, it seems to him best. And I am sure, feeling as he does, he is right. Yes, John is right."

Dr. Howe threw himself back in his revolving chair, and spun half-way round. "Helen," he said, "this is folly; you must talk like a sensible woman. You know you cannot leave your husband. I suppose you and Ward, like all the rest of the world that is married, have had some falling out; and now, being young, you think your lives are over. Nonsense! Bless my soul, child, your aunt and I had dozens of them, and all as silly as this, I'll be bound. But I'm sure we did not take the public into our confidence by declaring that we would live apart. I should have given you credit for more sense, indeed I should."

Helen did not notice the reprimand.

"Now tell me all about it," he continued. "You know you can trust me, and I'll write your husband a letter which will make things clear."

Helen shook her head wearily. "You will not understand. Nothing can be done; it is as fixed as—death. We can neither of us alter it and be ourselves. Oh, I have tried and tried to see some way out of it, until it seems as if my soul were tired."

"I did not intend to be severe, my child," the rector said, with remorseful gentleness, "but in one way it is a more serious thing than you realize. I don't mean this foolishness of a separation; that will all be straightened out in a day or two. But we do not want it gossiped about, and your being here at all, after having started home, looks strange; and of course, if you say anything about having had a—a falling out with Ward, it will make it ten times worse. But you haven't told me what it is?"

"Yes, I'll tell you," she answered, "and then perhaps you will see that it is useless to talk about it. I must just take up the burden of life as well as I can."

"Go on," said the rector.

"John has been much distressed lately," Helen began, looking down at her hands, clasping each other until the skin was white across the knuckles, "because I have not believed in eternal punishment. He has felt that my eternal happiness depended upon holding such a belief." Dr. Howe looked incredulous. "Some weeks ago, one of his elders came to him and told him I was spreading heresy in the church, and damning my own soul and the souls of others who might come to believe as I did,—you know I told Mrs. Davis that her husband had not gone to hell,—and he reproached John for neglecting me and his church too; for John, to spare me, had not preached as he used to, on eternal punishment. It almost killed him, uncle," she said, and her voice, which had given no hint of tears since her return, grew unsteady. "Oh, he has suffered so! and he has felt that it was his fault, a failure in his love, that I did not believe what he holds to be true."

"Heavens!" cried the rector explosively, "heresy? Is this the nineteenth century?"

"Since I have been away," Helen went on, without noticing the interruption, "they have insisted that I should be sessioned,—dealt with, they call it. John won't let me come back to that; but if that were his only reason, we could move away from Lockhaven. He has a nobler reason: he feels that this unbelief of mine will bring eternal misery to my soul, and he would convert me by any means. He has tried all that he knows (for oh, we have discussed it endlessly, uncle Archie!),—argument, prayer, love, tenderness, and now—sorrow."

The rector was sitting very straight in his chair, his plump hands gripping the arms of it, and his lips compressed with anger, while he struggled for patience to hear this preposterous story through.

"He makes me suffer," Helen continued, "that I may be saved. And indeed I don't see how he can do anything else. If a man believes his wife will be damned for all eternity unless she accepts certain doctrines, I should think he would move heaven and earth to make her accept them. And John does believe that. In denying reprobation, I deny revelation, he says, and also the Atonement, upon which salvation depends. So now you see why he says I shall not come back to him until I have found the truth."

Then Dr. Howe burst into a torrent of indignant remonstrance. A clergyman send his wife from him because she does not believe some dogma! Were we back in the dark ages? It was too monstrously absurd! If the idiots he preached to forced him to do it, let him leave them; let him come to Ashurst. The rector would build him a meeting-house, and he could preach his abominable doctrine to anybody who was fool enough to go and hear him.

Dr. Howe was walking hastily up and down the room, gesticulating as he talked. Helen's patient eyes followed him. Again and again she tried to point out to him her husband's intense sincerity, and the necessity which his convictions forced upon him. But the rector refused to think Mr. Ward's attitude worthy of serious consideration. "The man is insane!" he cried. "Send his wife away from him to force her into a certain belief? Madness,—I tell you, madness!"

"I cannot hear you speak so of my husband," Helen said very quietly, but it caused Dr. Howe to conceal his wrath.

"He'll think differently in a day or two," he said. "This nonsense won't last."

Then Helen, having exhausted all her arguments to show that John was immovable, said, "Let me read you what he says himself; then you will understand, perhaps, how real it all is to him, and how he cannot help it."

"Bah!" cried Dr. Howe, and certainly it was trying to have Helen attempt to excuse such folly. "I've no patience with—There, there! I didn't mean to lose my temper, but bless my soul, this is the worst thing I ever knew. See here, Helen, if the man is so determined, you'll have to change your views, or go back to your old views, I mean,—I don't know what you do believe,—that's all there is about it."

Helen was unfolding John's letter, and she looked up at her uncle with a fleeting smile. "Change my views so that I can go back? Do you think that would satisfy John? Do you think I could? Why, uncle Archie, do you believe in eternal damnation? I know you pray to be delivered from it in the Litany, but do you believe in it?"

"That has nothing to do with the question, Helen," he answered, frowning, "and of course I believe that the consequences of sin are eternal."

"You know that is not what the prayer means," she insisted; "you have to put your private interpretation upon it. Well, it is my private interpretation which John thinks is sin, and sin which will receive what it denies."

"Well, you must believe it, then," the rector said, striking his fist on the arm of his chair; "it is the wife's place to yield; and while I acknowledge it is all folly, you must give in."

"You mean," she said, "that I must say I believe it. Can I change a belief? You know I cannot, uncle Archie. And when you hear what John says, you will see I must be true, no matter where truth leads me."

Helen knew every word of that letter by heart. She had read it while she drove towards the depot, and when she dismissed the carriage it was with a vague idea of flying to Lockhaven, and brushing all this cobweb of unreason away, and claiming her right to take her place at her husband's side. But as she sat in the station, waiting, every sentence of the letter began to burn into her heart, and she slowly realized that she could not go back. The long day passed, and the people, coming and going, looked curiously at her; one kindly woman, seeing the agony in her white face, came up and asked her if she were ill, and could she help her? Helen stared at her like a person in a dream, and shook her head. Then, in a numb sort of way, she began to understand that she must go back to Ashurst. She did not notice that it had begun to rain, or think of a carriage, but plodded, half blind and dazed, over the country road to her old home, sometimes sitting down, not so much to rest as to take the letter from its envelope again and read it.

She looked at it now, with a sudden gasp of pain; it was as though a dagger had been turned in a wound. It seemed too sacred to read to Dr. Howe, but it was just to John that it should be heard, even if only partly understood; and it was also just to her—for Helen had one of those healthy souls which could be just to itself. With the letter had come a clear and logical statement of the doctrine of reprobation, together with the arguments and reasons for holding it; besides this, there was a list of books which he meant to send her. All these she handed to her uncle.

"I will not read you all he writes," she said, "but even a little will show you the hopelessness of thinking I can ever go back to him. He tells me first of a meeting of his Session, where the elders told him they wished to have me summoned before them, and of another visit from Mr. Dean, of whom I spoke to you, insisting that John had been faithless in his duty to his church and me. 'I could only listen,' he writes, 'in assenting anguish, when he charged me with having been careless of your spiritual life; and when he said that the sin of your unbelief had crept from soul to soul, like an insidious and fatal disease unseen by the eyes of the church, until spiritual death, striking first one and then another, roused us to our danger. How can I write that word "us," as though I arrayed myself with them against you, dearest! Yet it is not you, but this fatal unbelief! They charged me, these elders, whose place it is to guard the spiritual life of the church, with having preached peace to them, when there was no peace, and leaving unspoken the words of warning that eternal death awaits unrepented sin. They told me Davis had died in his sin, not having had the fear of hell before his eyes to convert his soul. And, Helen, I know it is all true! When they insisted that you, like any other member of the church, should be brought before the Session, that they might reason with you, and by the blessing of God convert your soul to a saving knowledge of the truth, or at least bind you to silence for the sake of others, I would not listen. Here I felt my right was greater than theirs, for you are like my own soul. I told them I would not permit it; I knew it would but drive you further from grace. I cannot think I sinned in this, though I apparently neglect a means of salvation for you; but I could not subject you to that,—I could not put your soul into their hands. I distrust myself (I have need, having loved earthly happiness more than your immortal peace, and called it wisdom), yet I think I am right in this. God grant that the means of grace which I choose instead, which will crucify my own heart, may, by his blessing, save your soul. And I have faith to believe it will. The promises of God fail not.

"'Oh, Helen, if I loved you less! Sometimes, in these two weeks, while this purpose has been growing up in my mind, I have shrunk back, and cried that I could not drink of the cup, and in the depth of human weakness I have felt, if I loved her less, I could not do what I have to do, and so the pain would be spared. But love is too mighty for me. I shall save you! When I think of the months since we were married, which I have kept unruffled by a single entreaty that you would turn from darkness into light, my eyes are blasted by the sight of my own sin; despair and death lay hold upon me. But He has had mercy upon me. He has shown me one way in which you shall be saved, and by his strength I am not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Reason and argument have not shown you the light. Joy and peace have not led you to it. There is one other path, beloved, which I have faith to believe shall not fail. It is sorrow. Sorrow can bring the truth home to you as no other thing will. The relentless pressure of grief will force you to seek for light. It will admit of no evasion; it will receive no subtilty; it will bring you face to face with the eternal verities; it will save your soul. And what sorrow, Helen, can come to you such as making me suffer? And is there a pang which can tear my soul in this world like absence from my beloved? I trample my own happiness under my feet. Too long I have been weak, too long I have loved you with but half my nature; now I am strong. Therefore I say, before God, for your soul's sake, you shall not see my face until you have found the truth. This pain, which will be to me but the just punishment for my sin, will be to you like some sharp and bitter medicine which shall heal you of what would otherwise bring eternal death. Even as I write I am filled with strength from God to save you. For God has shown me the way. And it shall be soon,—I know it shall be soon. The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. He has revealed to me the one last way of showing you the truth, and He will lighten your eyes. Yet, oh, my love, my wife, help me to be strong for you,—my Helen, help me in these days or weeks of waiting.

"'There is one mercy vouchsafed to me who am all unworthy of the least favor: it is the knowledge of your understanding it all,—the bitter distress, the absolute conviction, and the necessity which follows it. You see what the temptation was to fly with you to some spot where your unbelief could not injure any one, and there work and pray for your salvation; leaving these souls, which my neglect of you and so of them, has allowed to drift deep into sin. You will understand that, believing (oh, knowing, Helen, knowing) that salvation depends upon a right conception of truth, I have no choice but to force you by any means to save your soul. This knowledge makes me strong. So I am set, with strength which you yourself give me, to inflict this suffering upon you. Take this absence and use its bitterness to sting you to search for truth. Take its anguish to God. Pray for light, pray for the Spirit of God. And when light comes—Oh, love, the thought of that joy seems too great to bear except before the throne of God! I shall not write again; you will meet this grief in the solitude of your own soul, where even I dare not come to break the silence which may be the voice of God. Write me any questionings, that I may help those first faint stirrings of the Holy Spirit, but unless questionings come I shall be silent.'"

Helen had not read all of this aloud, and there was yet more, on which she looked a moment before she folded the letter. The closing words were full of a human tenderness too divine and holy for any heart but her own; a faint smile crept about her lips for a moment, as she leaned out of her distress to rest upon her husband's love, and then she woke again to the present.

But the rector was not softened by John's letter; there was a curl of contempt upon his lip which colored his words, though with Helen's quiet eyes upon him he forced himself to speak calmly.

"You see he expects you to return. This idea of yours, of a separation, is nonsense. I told you so in the first place. Now the only thing to do is to go to Lockhaven, and just say that your convictions are immovable (if they are, though it would be wiser to make a concession, Helen), so there is no use in experimenting in this absurd way. Absurd? Why it is—it is"—

Dr. Howe's face was crimson, and he could find no epithet strong enough to use.

"Do you suppose I have not told John that I could not change?" Helen said sadly, ignoring the suggestion of a concession; "and to go back, uncle Archie,—you don't know John! He thinks I will come back,—you are right there,—but only because he thinks this plan of his is an inspiration from God, and will lead me to believe as he wishes. It will not, and you know it. But John would feel that he was doubting God to let me come, if the promise were unfulfilled. So I shall never return. Oh, must we discuss it? It is fixed; it can never be changed. If only it could be understood at once! There is no hope."

Dr. Howe rose, and walked about the room a moment, breathing hard, and swallowing once or twice, as though to choke some hot words. Then he sat down, and began to argue.

First, he tried to prove to Helen that there was a hell, but unconsciously he veered to assertions that it made no difference, anyhow; that of course the doctrine of eternal damnation was preposterous, and that she must persuade Mr. Ward to drop the subject. He reasoned and threatened, then he expostulated and implored, ending all with, "You must go back, and at once."

Helen had been silent, but when he finished she said, so absently that he knew she had not been listening, "Shall I explain why I have come back, or would you prefer to do it?"

"Explain?" cried the rector. "What are you thinking of? Of course not! It is not to be known."

"It must be known, I think," Helen answered calmly. "I am here, and I shall stay here, so it seems to me better to disarm gossip by telling the truth at once."

Dr. Howe sunk back in his chair, and looked at his niece in speechless annoyance.

"You had better let me tell them, uncle Archie," she said simply; "it will be less unpleasant for you."

Then he regained his voice: "It is not to be told, Helen. I shall not allow it. If you have no sense, I'll take the matter into my own hands. If people choose to gossip about your being here a few days or a week,—it may take a week for this folly to blow over,—why, they can, that's all. I will not—you hear me, Helen?—I will not enter into any absurd explanations."

Helen lifted her heavy eyes, and looked at him a moment, and then she said, "Aunt Deely?"

Dr. Howe suffered a sudden collapse. "Well, I—ah—well, perhaps Adele. I suppose Adele must know it. I don't know but what her common sense may be good for you, my dear. Yes, I'll tell Adele."

"I should like to have Lois understand it," Helen said.

"Well," Dr. Howe conceded, "yes—I suppose you might mention it to Lois—because"—

"I don't want her to think anything wrong of John," Helen explained.

Dr. Howe stared at her blankly, but did not burst into wrathful exclamations; he was actually exhausted in mind and body; this controversy had been too much for him. But that remark of Helen's ended it. She went slowly up-stairs, clinging to the balustrade as though she needed some support, yet she had not spoken of being tired. She passed Lois, sitting on the window-seat which ran across the broad landing, but did not seem to see her, and there was something in her cousin's face which kept the young girl dumb.

Dr. Howe did not go to Dale house until the next day; he vaguely hoped something would turn up before his sister discovered Helen's presence at the rectory, which would make this humiliating confession unnecessary. But nothing happened except the arrival of a letter from John Ward to Dr. Howe, explaining his convictions and reiterating his determination.

Helen kept in her own room that day and the next, so Gifford Woodhouse, who came to the rectory, did not guess her presence, since Lois had been admonished to be silent concerning it, and no one else chanced to call. Of course the servants knew. Dr. Howe ground his teeth as he reflected that Sally would probably tattle the whole thing; the more so, if she were charged not to mention it. Yet he was rather relieved, when he went to tell his sister, to find that she knew the main fact already.

"Helen's back again!" she cried as soon as she saw him.

He found her in the big cool dining-room, cutting out pieces of paper for the tops of her pots of strawberry jam, and fringing them delicately with a little pair of shining scissors.

"Well, Archibald," she said, looking at him over her glasses, as he sat down at the other end of the polished table, "this is pretty hot, isn't it? I'll have Betty bring you a sangaree; there's a fan on the window-sill, if you want it; I never have patience to use a fan. Henry's in his library. I declare, it is as cold as a vault in that room; but you'd better not go down. We Howes are too rheumatic for such damp places."

Betty brought the sangaree, and the rector diverted himself while he put off the evil moment of explanation, by clinking the ice against the glass.

"Betty was down in the village last night," Mrs. Dale was saying, "and she saw your Sally, and she told her Helen did not get off on Monday. What in the world does that mean? I do dislike to see the child so changeable. I suppose she wants to wait and go with Lois, after all? But why didn't she make up her mind before she started? And all this talk about getting back to her husband! Oh, these young wives,—they don't mind leaving their husbands!"

"Yes, she's back," said the rector gloomily.

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Dale asked quickly, for his tone did not escape her.

Then he told her the whole story. There was a moment's silence when he had finished. At last Mrs. Dale said violently, "Well!" and again, "Well!" After that she rose, and brushing the clippings of paper from her black silk apron, she said, "We will go and talk this over in the parlor, Archibald."

The rector followed her, miserably. Though he had a clear conscience, in that he had treated the ridiculous affair with the utmost severity, and had done all he could to make Helen return to her husband, he yet trembled as he thought how his sister would reproach him. ("Though I can't help it!" he said to himself. "Heaven knows I used every argument short of force. I couldn't compel a reluctant wife to return to an unwilling husband, especially when she thinks the husband is all right.") "You see, she approves of Ward," he groaned.

Mrs. Dale sat down, but the rector walked nervously about, jingling some keys in his pocket.

"It is very distressing," he said.

"Distressing?" cried Mrs. Dale. "It is worse than distressing. It is disgraceful, that's what it is,—disgraceful! What will Deborah Woodhouse say, and the Draytons? I tell you, Archibald, it must be put a stop to, at once!"

"That is very easy to say," began Dr. Howe.

"It is very easy to do, if there's a grain of sense in your family. Just send your niece"—

"She's your niece, too, Adele," he interrupted.

But Mrs. Dale did not pause—"back to her husband. You ought to have taken her yesterday morning. It is probably all over Ashurst by this time!"

"But you forget," objected Dr. Howe, "he won't let her come; you can't change his views by saying Helen must go back."

"But what does it matter to her what his views are?" said Mrs. Dale.

"It matters to him what her views are," answered Dr. Howe despondently. Somehow, since he had begun to talk to his sister, he had grown almost as hopeless as Helen.

"Then Helen must change her views," Mrs. Dale said promptly. "I have no patience with women who set up their own Ebenezers. A woman should be in subjection to her own husband, I say,—and so does St. Paul. In my young days we were taught to love, honor, and obey. Helen needs to be reminded of her duty, and I'll see that she is."

"Well, I wish you success," said the rector grimly.

"And I'll have it!" Mrs. Dale retorted.

"But you don't take into consideration," Dr. Howe said, "that Helen will not say one thing when she thinks another. How can you change a person's belief? I have been all over it, Adele. It is perfectly useless!"

The brother and sister looked at each other a moment silently; then Mrs. Dale said, "Well, if you ask my advice"—

"I didn't; there's no use. Helen will be her own adviser, you can depend upon that. I only just wanted you to know the facts. No outsider can direct the affairs of a man and woman who are entirely determined."

"I am not an outsider," returned Mrs. Dale, "though you can call yourself one, if you choose. And I am going to give you advice, and I hope you'll be sensible enough to take it. You have just got to go and see this Mr. Ward, and tell him he must take Helen back; tell him we cannot have such things in our family. A wife separated from her husband,—why, good gracious, just think of it, Archibald!"

"Do you suppose I haven't thought of it?" demanded the rector.

"And Helen must go," continued Mrs. Dale, "belief or no belief."

Her brother shook his head, and sighed.

"I don't believe it will do any good for me to see him, but of course I shall go to Lockhaven unless I get a favorable answer to my letter. I wrote him yesterday. But do you imagine that any talk of our feelings is going to move a man like Ward? His will is like iron. I saw that in his letter to Helen. I suppose it pains him to do this. I suppose he does suffer, in a way. But if he can contemplate her distress unmoved, do you think anything I can urge will change him? He'll wait for her conversion, if it takes her whole life."

"But Helen has been confirmed," said Mrs. Dale, in a bewildered way; "what more does he want?"

"He wants her to be converted, I tell you," cried her brother, "and he's bound to bring it about! He uses the illustration of giving medicine to a sick child to insure its recovery, no matter at what cost of pain to the child or the giver."

"But isn't it the same thing?" persisted Mrs. Dale: "converted—confirmed? We don't use such expressions in the Church, but it is the same thing."

"'Experience a change of heart,' Ward says in his letter; 'be convicted of the sin of unbelief'!" the rector said contemptuously, and ignoring his sister's question; "but conversion with him merely means a belief in hell, so far as I can make out."

"Well, of course Helen is all wrong not to believe in hell," said Mrs. Dale promptly; "the Prayer-Book teaches it, and she must. I'll tell her so. All you have to do is to see this Mr. Ward and tell him she will; and just explain to him that she has been confirmed,—we don't use those Methodistical expressions in the Church. Perhaps the sect he belongs to does, but one always thinks of them as rather belonging to the lower classes, you know. I suppose we ought not to expect anything else from such a person,—who ever heard of his people? I always said the marriage would turn out badly," she added triumphantly. "You remember, I told you so?"

The rector sighed. After all, Mrs. Dale did not help him. It was useless to try to impress her with the theological side of the matter, as she only returned with fresh vigor to the charge that it was a disgrace to the family. So he rose to go, saying, "Well, I'll wait for Ward's letter, and if he persists in this insanity I'll start for Lockhaven. You might see Helen, and see what you can do."

As Mrs. Dale began in her positive way to say how he ought to talk to "this man," Mr. Dale came in.

"I thought I heard your voice," he said to his brother-in-law, "and I came up"—he looked deprecatingly at his wife—"to ask you to step down and have a pipe. I want to speak to you about Denner's books."

But before Dr. Howe could answer, Mrs. Dale poured forth all the troublesome and disgraceful story of the "separated husband and wife." Mr. Dale listened intently; once he flourished his red handkerchief across his eyes as he blew his nose. When he did this, he scattered some loose tobacco about, and Mrs. Dale stopped to reprimand him. "I tell you," she ended emphatically, "it is this new-fangled talk of woman's rights that has done all this. What need has Helen of opinions of her own? A woman ought to be guided by her husband in everything!"

"You see it is pretty bad, Henry," said the rector.

"It is,—it is," said the older man, his mild eyes glistening; "but oh, Archibald, how he loves her!"

"Loves her?" cried the other two together.

"Yes," continued Mr. Dale slowly; "one feels as if we ought not even to discuss it, for we are scarcely capable of understanding it. The place whereon we stand is holy ground."

"Henry," said his wife, "there's no fool like an old fool. You don't know what you are talking about."

But when Dr. Howe, softening a little since Mr. Dale did not abuse John Ward, said he must tell Helen that,—it would please her,—Mrs. Dale begged him to do nothing of the sort.

"It would be just like her to consider the whole affair a unique mode of expressing affection. We had better try to show her it is a disgrace to the family. Love, indeed! Well, I don't understand love like that!"

"No," Mr. Dale responded, "no, I suppose not. But, my dear, don't you wish you did?"

When Dr. Howe told Helen of his plan of going to Lockhaven, she tried to show him that it was useless; but as she saw his determination, she ceased to oppose him. She would have spared John if she could (and she knew how impossible it was that the rector could move her husband), yet she felt that her family had a right to insist upon a personal explanation, and to make an effort, however futile, to induce her husband to take her home. In the mean time, they waited for an answer to the rector's letter. Helen had written, but she knew no answer would come to her. She understood too well that sweet and gentle nature, which yielded readily in small things, and was possessed of invincible determination in crises, to hope that John could change. Yet she had written; she had shared her hopelessness as well as her grief with him, when she told him how impossible it was for her to think as he did. She showed how fast and far she had drifted into darkness and unbelief since she had left him, yet she held out no hope that a return to him could throw any light into those eternal shadows. "I understand it all," she had written, stopping to comfort him even while she told him how futile was his pain and hers, "and oh, how you must suffer, my darling, but it cannot be helped unless you free yourself from your convictions. Perhaps that will come some time; until then, you can only be true to yourself. But I understand it all,—I know."

Those days of waiting were hard to bear. The distance between her uncle and herself had suddenly widened; and she could not see that beneath his irritation there was really a very genuine sympathy.

She had vaguely hoped that Lois would comfort her, for one turns instinctively in grief to the nearest loving thing, and she knew her cousin loved her. Yet Lois had not been able to understand, and Helen would hear no words of sympathy which were not as much for John as for herself.

It was not until Thursday that she had told Lois why she had come back. They were in their pleasant sitting-room, Lois walking restlessly about, with such puzzled expectation on her face that its white sadness was almost banished. Helen sat with her hands clasped loosely in her lap, and leaning her head against the window. Below, there was the bloom and glory of the garden, butterflies darted through the sunshine, and the air was full of the honeyed hum of the bees. But the silence of the room seemed only a breathless anxiety, which forbade rest of mind or body; and so Helen had roused herself, and tried to tell her cousin what it all meant; but even as she talked she felt Lois's unspoken condemnation of her husband, and her voice hardened, and she continued with such apparent indifference Lois was entirely deceived. "So you see," she ended, "I cannot go back to Lockhaven."

Lois, walking back and forth, as impatient as her father might have been, listened, her eyes first filling with tears, and then flashing angrily. She threw herself on her knees beside Helen, as she finished, and put her arms about her cousin's waist, kissing her listless hands in a passion of sympathy. "Oh, my dear!" she cried, her cheeks wet with tears, "how dreadful—how horrible! Oh, Helen, darling, my poor darling!"

Lois did not stop to consider the theological side of the matter, which was a relief to Helen. She tried to quiet the young girl's distress, holding her bright head against her breast, and soothing her with gentle words.

"If I were you," Lois said at last, "I would go back to Lockhaven; I would go, if it had to be in disguise!"—

"Not if you loved John," Helen answered.

"How can you bear it?" Lois whispered, looking up into the calm face with a sort of awe which checked her tears. "It is so cruel, Helen, you cannot forgive him."

"There is nothing to forgive; I hoped you would understand that, Lois. John cannot do anything else, don't you see? Why, I would not love him as I do, if, having such convictions, he was not true to them. He must be true before anything else."

Lois was sitting on the floor in front of her, clasping her knees with her arms, and rocking back and forth. "Well," she cried hotly, "I don't understand anything about his convictions, but I tell you what it is, Helen, I do understand how hard it is for you! And I can never forgive him, if you can. It is all very well to think about truth, but it seems to me he ought to think about you."

"But don't you see," Helen explained, still vaguely hoping that Lois would understand, "he thinks only of me? Why, Lois, it is all for me."

Lois's face was flushed with excitement. "I don't care!" she cried, "it is cruel—cruel—cruel!"

Helen looked at her steadily a moment, and then she said patiently, "The motive is what makes cruelty, Lois. And can't you see that it is only because of his love that he does this? If he loved me less, he could not do it."

"Heavens!" Lois exclaimed, springing to her feet, "I wish he loved you less, then! No, there is no use saying things like that, Helen; he is narrow and bigoted,—he is a cruel fanatic." She did not see that Helen had half risen from her chair, and was watching her with gleaming eyes. "He actually prides himself on being able to make you suffer,—you read me that yourself out of his letter. He's a bad man, and I'm glad you've done with him"—

She would have said more, but Helen had followed her swiftly across the room, and grasping her arm until the girl cried out with pain, she put her hand over those relentless young lips. "Hush!" she cried, in a terrible voice; "do not dare to speak so to me! If I hear such words again, I shall leave this house. You may not be able to see my husband's nobleness, but at least you can be silent."

Lois pushed her hand away, and stared at her in amazement. "I didn't mean to offend you," she stammered. "I only meant that he"—

"Do not speak of him!" Helen said passionately, her breath still quick, and her face white to the lips. "I do not wish to hear what you meant! Oh, Lois, Lois, I thought that you"—She turned away, and pressed her hands hard on her eyes a moment; then she said, "I understand—I know—your affection for me prompted it—but I cannot listen, Lois, if you have such feelings about him. I will take your sympathy for granted after this. I do not want to talk about it again."

Lois went silently out of the room, her heart overflowing with love for her cousin, and added rage at the man who had come between them. She found Gifford walking about in the hall down-stairs, and, forgetful of her father's injunction, she went quickly up to him, trembling with excitement, and half sobbing.

"Giff—oh, Giff—that man, that John Ward, has sent Helen back! She's here—she can't go home!"

Gifford was too astounded to speak.

"Yes," Lois cried, clinging to his arm, her eyes overflowing, "he is a wicked man—he is cruel—and she thinks I am, Giff, just because I said he was!"

Lois's agitation drove him into his most deliberate speech.

"What do you mean? I do not understand."

"Of course not! Nobody could think of anything so awful. Come into the library, and I'll tell you. Father does not want it spoken of, Gifford, but since you know she's here, I might as well explain."

The room was deserted, except for Max, who was stretched on the cool hearthstones; it was full of dusky shadows lurking in the wainscoted corners; the outside shutters were bowed, and only two thin streaks of sunshine traveled in from the warm sweet garden outside. Some roses in a bowl on the table filled the air with fragrance.

Lois hurried nervously through the story, breaking into angry grief that John Ward should have made Helen angry at her. For she had told Gifford how she had tried to console her cousin.

"It makes me hate John Ward more than ever!" she said, striking her hands passionately together. "Oh, Giff, isn't it awful?"

"Poor fellow!" said the young man, deeply moved, "poor Ward! It is worse for him than it is for Helen."

"Oh, how can you say so?" she cried; "but I'm sure I hope it is!"

"He won't weaken," Gifford went on slowly. "He will stand like a rock for what he believes is right, and he will be more apt to believe it is right if it nearly kills him."

"I wish it would! And Helen, poor darling, thinks he loves her. What sort of love does he call this?"

"Oh, it is love," Gifford answered; "and I tell you, Lois, it is a height of love that is ideal,—it is the measure of Ward's soul." They were both so much in earnest, there was not the slightest self-consciousness in this talk of love, even though Gifford added, "I never knew a man capable of such devotion, and there are few women like Helen, who could inspire it."

"But, Giff," Lois said, not caring to discuss John Ward's character, "did you suppose anybody could be so narrow? Think how bigoted he is! And nobody believes in hell now as he does."

"I don't know about that, Lois," Gifford responded slowly. "Lots of people do, only they don't live up to their belief. If the people who say they believe in hell were in dead earnest, the world would have been converted long ago."

"He is a wicked man!" Lois cried inconsequently.

But Gifford shook his head. "No, he is not. And more than that, Lois, you ought to consider that this belief of Ward's, if it is crude, is the husk which has kept safe the germ of truth,—the consequences of sin are eternal. There is no escape from character."

"Oh, yes," she answered, "but that is not theology, you know: we don't put God into that."

"Heaven help us if we do not!" the young man said reverently. "It is all God, Lois; perhaps not God as John Ward thinks of Him, a sort of magnified man, for whom he has to arrange a scheme of salvation, a kind of an apology for the Deity, but the power and the desire for good in ourselves. That seems to me to be God. Sometimes I feel as though all our lives were a thought of the Eternal, which would have as clear an expression as we would let it."

Lois had not followed his words, and said impatiently as he finished, "Well, anyhow, he is cruel, and Helen should not have felt as she did when I said so."

Gifford hesitated. "She could not help it. How could she let you say it?"

"What!" cried Lois, "you think he's not cruel?"

"His will is not cruel," Gifford answered, "but I meant—I meant—she couldn't let you speak as you did of John Ward, to his wife."

Lois flung her head back. "You think I said too much?" she asked. "You don't half sympathize with her, Gifford. I didn't think you could be so hard."

"I mean it was not quite kind in you," he said slowly.

"I suppose you think it wasn't right?"

"No, Lois, it was not right," he answered, with a troubled face.

"Well, Gifford," she said, her voice trembling a little, "I'm sorry. But it seems I never do do anything right. You—you see nothing but faults. Oh, they're there!" she cried desperately. "Nobody knows that better than I do; but I never thought any one would say that I did not love Helen"—

"I didn't say so, Lois," the young man interrupted eagerly; "only I felt as though it wasn't fair for me to think you did not do just right, and not tell you so."

"Oh, of course," Lois said lightly, "but I don't think we are so very friendly that I can claim such consideration. You are always finding fault—and—and about Helen you misunderstand; we can say anything to each other. I am afraid I exaggerated her annoyance. She knew what I meant,—she said she did; she—she agreed with me, I've not a doubt!"

"I always seem to blunder," Gifford said, his face stinging from the cut about friendship. "I never seem to know how to tell the truth without giving offense—but—but, Lois, you know I think you are the best woman in the world."

"You have a pretty poor idea of women, then," she responded, a lump in her throat making her voice unsteady, "but I'm sure I don't care what you think. I have a right to say what I want to Helen."

She ran out of the room, for she would not let Gifford see her cry. "I don't care what he thinks!" she said, as she fled panting into the attic, and bolted the door as though she feared he would follow her. But then she began to remember that he had said she was the best woman in the world, and to her dismay she found herself smiling a little. "What a wretch I am!" she said sternly. "Mr. Denner is dead, and Helen is in such distress, and—and Dick Forsythe may come back! How can I be pleased at anything?"