John Ward, Preacher

Of course it was soon known that Helen Ward was at the rectory, but to the Misses Woodhouse, at least, her presence was not of enough importance to speculate or gossip about. Gifford had merely said Helen had changed her mind about going, and would be in Ashurst a few days longer, and the little ladies had such an absorbing interest of their own they did not ask many questions. Miss Ruth only remarked that she wondered how she could be satisfied to stay away from her husband so long, and Miss Deborah replied that the young did not understand serious attachment.

To both sisters a vague happiness had come in these last few weeks, and a certain sense of importance. Each felt it for herself, but was unable to realize it for the other, yet constantly encountered it with irritated astonishment, when the desire to confide was strong.

Once Miss Ruth, tearful with the memory of that last look from Mr. Denner's dying eyes, tried to approach the subject delicately, but was met with such amazing certainty on the part of Miss Deborah, and a covert allusion to the value of the miniature, that she was silenced. And again,—on Dr. Howe's return from Lockhaven,—Miss Deborah's condescension in telling Miss Ruth she might accompany her to the graveyard fell somewhat flat when she found that her sister had intended going, and had even picked some flowers to put on Mr. Denner's grave. However, they went together, a gentle seriousness on each face, and in an unusual silence. Their parents were buried here, so that it was not altogether sentiment which made them sad.

A white, dusty road climbed the hill which overlooked the village on the east, and on its brow, facing the sunrise, was the little group of Ashurst's dead.

The blossoming grass grew long and tangled here; the gray headstones slanted a little, or had even fallen, and some of the inscriptions were hidden by moss. The place was full of shadowy silence, only broken by the rustle of the leaves and small bird-cries, or, from down in the valley, the faint tinkle of a cow-bell. Cypresses stood dark against the blue sky, swaying a little in the soft wind, and from the top of one of them flew suddenly a brown hawk, his shadow floating from the green dusk under the trees out over the sunny meadow below.

The two sisters went to the graves of their father and mother first, and laid some flowers on them, and stood a moment looking at them silently. Their sighs were rather a reverent recognition of an old grief than real sorrow, for it was many years ago that these two had been laid here; the simple souls were too happy to understand the pathos of a forgotten grief, indeed, they did not even know that they had forgotten it.

As they turned away, Miss Ruth said in a hushed voice, "It is over by Dr. Howe's lot, sister. You can see it under that larch." So they went towards this one new grave, stepping softly, and stopping by some familiar name to brush away the grass that hid the inscription, or lay a blossom against the stone. They spoke once or twice of those who lay there, calling them by their first names, yet with that curious lowering of the voice which shows with what dignity death has invested what was once familiar.

They were silent as they laid their flowers on the fresh earth of Mr. Denner's grave, over which the kindly grass had not yet thrown its veil; and Miss Deborah stopped to put a single rose upon the sunken, mossy spot where, forty years before, the little sister had been laid to rest. Both the little ladies frankly wiped their eyes, though with no thought except for the old friendship which had ended here. They would have turned to go, then, but Miss Deborah laid her hand on Miss Ruth's arm. "Why, sister," she said, "who is that by Mary Jeffrey's grave?"

Some one was lying upon the grass, her cheek resting against the small marble cross at the head of the grave, and one arm thrown around it.

"It must be Helen!" answered Miss Ruth anxiously. "How imprudent!"

They went towards the prostrate figure,—there were no divisions in the Ashurst burying-ground,—and Miss Deborah stooped and touched her on the shoulder, saying in a shocked voice, for Helen was shaken with sobs, "Why, my dear child, what is the matter?"

Helen started violently, and then sat up, brushing the tears away, and struggling to speak calmly. "I—I did not know any one was here."

"We were just going," Miss Ruth replied in her kind little voice, "but we were grieved to see you troubled, my dear?"

Miss Ruth could not help saying it in a questioning way, for, in spite of Ashurst traditions of parental love, it could hardly be imagined that Helen was crying for a mother she had never known.

"You are very kind," Helen said, the tears still trembling in her eyes. "Something did trouble me—and—and I came here."

The sisters spoke some gentle words of this young mother, dead now for more than twenty years, and then went softly away, full of sympathy, yet fearing to intrude, though wondering in their kind hearts what could be the matter. But their curiosity faded; Mr. Denner's grave was a much more important thing than Helen's unknown grief.

"I dare say she misses her husband?" Miss Ruth suggested.

But Miss Deborah thought that quite improbable. "For she could go home, you know, if that was the case."

And here the sisters dropped the subject.

As for Helen, she still lingered in the silent graveyard. She felt, with the unreasoning passion of youth, that the dead gave her more comfort than the living. Lois had scarcely dared to speak to her since that talk in their sitting-room, and Dr. Howe's silence was like a pall over the whole house. So she had come here to be alone, and try to fancy what her husband and her uncle had said to each other, for Dr. Howe had refused to enter into the details of his visit.

His interview with her husband had only resulted in a greater bitterness on the part of the rector. He had waited for John Ward's answer to his letter, and its clear statement of the preacher's position, and its assertion that his convictions were unchangeable, gave him no hope that anything could be accomplished without a personal interview. Discussion with a man who actually believed that this cruel and outrageous plan of his, was appointed by God as a means to save his wife's soul, was absurd and undignified, but it had to be. The rector sighed impatiently as he handed her husband's letter to Helen.

"He is lost to all sense of propriety; apparently he has no thought of what he owes you. Well, I shall go to Lockhaven to-morrow."

"It is all for me!" Helen said. "Oh, uncle Archie, if you would just understand that!"

Dr. Howe gave an explosive groan, but he only said, "Tell Lois to pack my bag. I'll take the early train. Oh, Helen, why can't you be like other women? Why do you have to think about beliefs? Your mother never doubted things; why do you? Isn't it enough that older and wiser people than you do not question the faith?"

At the last moment he begged her to accompany him. "Together, we can bring the man to his senses," he pleaded, and he secretly thought that not even the hardness and heartlessness of John Ward could withstand the sorrow in her face. But she refused to consider it.

"Have you no message for him?" he asked.

"No," she answered.

"Sha'n't I tell him how you—miss him, Helen?"

A light flashed across her face, but she said simply, "John knows," and her uncle had to be content with that.

Dr. Howe grew more intolerant with each mile of his journey. Every incident touched him with a personal annoyance at the man he was going to see. The rattling, dingy cars on the branch railroad afflicted him with an irritated sense of being modern; the activity about the shabby station jarred upon his remembrance of Ashurst's mellow quiet; the faces of the men in the lumber-yards, full of aggressive good-nature, offended his ideas of dignity and reserve. A year ago, Dr. Howe would have thought all this very entertaining, and simple, and natural. Now, that a man who lived in such a place, among such people, should have it in his power to place the Howes in a conspicuous and painful position was unbearable!

By the time he reached the parsonage, to which an officious young person of whom he had inquired his way conducted him, he had attained a pitch of angry excitement which drove all theological arguments out of his mind. Alfaretta greeted him with a blank stare, and then a sudden brightening of her face as he gave his name.

"You're her uncle!" she cried. "How is she? and when is she comin' back? She ain't sick?"—this with quick alarm, for Dr. Howe had not answered her questions.

"No, no, my good woman," he said impatiently, "certainly not. Where is your master?"

"The preacher's not home," the girl answered coldly. She was not used to being called "my good woman," if she did live out. "You can wait, if you want to;" but there, her anxiety getting the better of her resentment, she added, "Is she comin' back soon?"

"I'll wait," said Dr. Howe briefly, walking past her into John Ward's study.

"Insufferable people!" he muttered. He looked about him as he entered the room, and the poverty of the bookshelves did not escape his keen eyes, nor the open volume of Jonathan Edwards on the writing-table. There was a vase beside it, which held one dried and withered rose; but it is doubtful if the pathos of the flower which was to await Helen's return would have softened him, even if he could have known it. He stopped and glanced at the book, and then began to read it, holding it close to his eyes, while, with his other hand behind him, he grasped his hat and stick.

He read the frequently quoted passages from Edwards, that God holds man over hell as a man might hold a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, with the satisfaction one feels in detecting a proof of the vicious nature of an enemy. "Ward is naturally cruel," he said to himself. "I've always thought so. That speech of his about slavery showed it."

He put down the book with an emphasis which argued ill for his opinion of a man who could study such words, and began to pace up and down the room like some caged animal, glancing once with a smothered exclamation at the old leather-covered volume, which had fallen upon the floor; he even gave it a furtive kick, as he passed.

He was so occupied with his own thoughts, he did not see John Ward come up the garden path and enter the parsonage, and when, a moment afterwards, the preacher came into the room, Dr. Howe started at the change in him. These weeks of spiritual conflict had left their mark upon him. His eyes had a strained look which was almost terror, and his firm, gentle lips were set in a line of silent and patient pain. Yet a certain brightness rested upon his face, which for a moment hid its pallor.

Through fear, and darkness, and grief, through an extraordinary misconception and strange blindness of the soul, John Ward had come, in his complete abnegation of himself, close to God. Since that June night, when he met the temptation which love for his wife held out to him, he had clung with all the passion of his life to his love for God. The whole night, upon his knees, he besought God's mercy for Helen, and fought the wild desire of flight the longing to take her and go away, where her unbelief could not injure any one else, and devote his life to leading her to light; go away from his people, whom God had committed to him, and whom he had betrayed, leave them, stained with the sin he had permitted to grow unchecked among them, and give his very soul to Helen, to save her. But the temptation was conquered. When the faint, crystal brightness of the dawn looked into his study, it saw him still kneeling, his face hidden in his arms, but silent and at peace. God had granted his prayer, he said to himself. He had shown him the way to save Helen. At first he had shrunk from it, appalled, crying out, "This is death, I cannot, I cannot!" But when, a little later, he went out into the growing glory of the day, and, standing bareheaded, lifted his face to heaven, he said, "I love her enough, thank God,—thank God." A holy and awful joy shone in his eyes. "God will do it," he said, with simple conviction. "He will save her, and my love shall be the human instrument."

After that had come the days when John had written those imploring letters to his wife, the last of which she had answered with such entire decision, saying that there was no possible hope that she could ever believe in what she called a "monstrous doctrine," and adding sorrowfully that it was hard even to believe in God,—a personal God, and she could be content to let doctrines go, if only that light upon the darkness of the world could be left her.

Then he had sent his last letter. He had written it upon his knees, his eyes stung with terrible tears; but his hand did not falter; the letter was sent. Then he waited for the manifestation of God in Helen's soul: he distrusted himself and his own strength, but he never doubted God; he never questioned that this plan for converting his wife was a direct answer to his prayers.

Now, when he saw Dr. Howe, he had a moment of breathless hope that her uncle had come to tell him that Helen had found the truth. But almost before the unreasonableness of his idea struck him, he knew from Dr. Howe's face that the time was not yet.

"I am glad to see you," he said, a little hurriedly; the thin hand he extended was not quite steady.

The rector's forehead was gathered into a heavy frown. "See here," he answered, planting his feet wide apart, and still holding his hat and stick behind him, "I cannot give you my hand while you are ignorant of the spirit in which I come."

"You come for Helen's sake," John replied.

"Yes, sir, I do come for Helen's sake," returned Dr. Howe, "but it is because of your conduct, because of the heartless way in which you have treated my niece. You cannot expect me to have a friendly feeling for the man who is cruel to her." For the moment he forgot that this was to be a theological dispute. "Now, sir, what explanation have you to give of this outrageous affair?"

"Helen's soul shall be saved," John said, his voice growing firmer, but losing none of its gentleness.

Dr. Howe made an impatient gesture. "Helen's soul!" he cried. "Is it possible that a sane man can seriously excuse his conduct on such a ground? Why, it is incredible! How do you suppose the world will regard your action?"

"What have you or I to do with the world?" the other answered.

"We live in it," said Dr. Howe, "and if we are wise men we will not, for a mad whim, violate its standards of propriety. When a man turns his wife out of his house, he must consider what meaning is attached to such an action by the world. You blast Helen's life, sir, and her family is necessarily involved in the same disgrace."

John looked at him with clear, direct eyes. "I save Helen's soul, and her family will rejoice with me when that day comes."

"Her family," the other replied contemptuously, "are not troubled about Helen's soul; they are quite satisfied with her spiritual condition."

"Do they know what it is?" John asked.

"Certainly," answered the rector, "of course. But it isn't of the slightest consequence, anyhow. The main thing is to cover up this unfortunate affair at once. If Helen comes back right away, I think no one need know what has happened."

"But there is nothing to cover up," John said simply; "there is no shame that Helen should accept God's way of leading her to himself."

"Lord!" exclaimed Dr. Howe, and then stopped. This would never do; if Ward became angry, he would only grow more obstinate.

"If you are so troubled about her unbelief," the rector said, feeling that he was very wily, "I should think you would see the need of daily influence. You could accomplish more if she were with you. The constant guidance of a clergyman would be of the utmost value. I suppose you think she is with me, but I doubt"—his lip curled a little—"if I can give her quite the instruction you desire."

"Oh, I had not hoped for that," John answered. "But her surroundings will not influence Helen now. Impelled by my grief, she must search for truth."

Dr. Howe was too much excited to notice the reproof in John's words. "Well, it will teach her to think; it will push her into positive unbelief. Agnosticism!—that's what this 'search for truth' ends in nowadays! Come, now, be reasonable, Ward; for Heaven's sake, don't be a—a—don't be so unwise. I advise this really in your own interests. Why, my dear fellow, you'll convert her in half the time if she is with you. What? And don't you see that your present attitude will only drive her further away? You are really going against your own interests."

"Do not play the part of the Tempter," John said gently; "it ill becomes Christ's minister to do that. Would you have me pray for guidance, and then refuse to follow it when it comes? God will give me the strength and courage to make her suffer that she may be saved."

Dr. Howe stared at him for a moment. Then he said, "I—I do not need you to teach me my duty as Christ's minister, sir; it would be more fitting that you should concern yourself with your duty as a husband." The vein in his forehead was swollen with wrath. "The way in which you pride yourself upon devising the most exquisite pain for your wife is inhuman,—it is devilish! And you drag her family into the scandal of it, too."

John was silent.

Again Dr. Howe realized that he must control himself; if he got into a passion, there would be an end of bringing about a reconciliation.

"You made me forget myself," he said. "I didn't mean to speak of my own feelings. It is Helen I want to talk about." Perhaps some flash of memory brought her face before his eyes. "Sit down," he added brusquely,—"you look tired;" and indeed the pallor of John's face was deadly.

The rector, in his impatience, sat on the edge of his chair, one plump fist resting on the table, and the other hand clenched on the head of his cane. His arguments and entreaties were equally divided, but he resolutely checked the denunciations which trembled upon his lips. John answered him almost tenderly; his own grief was not so absorbing that he could be indifferent to the danger of a man who set the opinion of the world before the solemn obligations of his profession. Carefully, and fully, and very quietly, he explained his position in regard to his parish; but when Dr. Howe urged that Helen might observe all proper forms, and yet keep silence on what was, after all, a most immaterial difference, John roused to sudden passion. Here was an old temptation.

"God forbid!" he said. "Observe forms, and let her hope of spiritual life die? No, no,—not that. Form without soul is dead. You must have seen that too often."

"Well, I'll tell you what to do," said the rector, in his eagerness pulling his chair closer to John's, and resting his hand almost confidentially upon his knee: "if you fear her influence in your parish,—and of course I understand that,—why, give her a letter to another church."

John half smiled, but did not answer. The room had grown dark as they talked, and now Alfaretta brought a lamp, looking curiously at the rector, as she passed him. "Supper's ready, Mr. Ward," she said.

"Yes," John said. "Dr. Howe, I hope"—

But the rector plunged again into argument. Once he stopped, and said, "So, surely, she can return?"

"It is impossible," John answered quietly.

And again, "You will let me send her back?"

And he said, "No."

At last, wearied and baffled, Dr. Howe rose. He leaned heavily forward on the table, his open palm resting on the volume of sermons, which Alfaretta had lifted from the floor, and he looked steadily at John. "Then, sir," he said slowly, "I am to understand, for my niece, that this monstrous decision of yours is fixed and unchangeable? We cannot hope that her love, or her youth, or your duty, or the miserable scandal of the affair, will ever move your cruel determination?"

John rose, too. The interview had been a terrible strain. His courage was unshaken, but his strength was leaving him; a pathetic desire for sympathy and understanding seized him. "I love her too much to change. Don't you understand? But I cling to more than human strength, when I say, I will not change."

"Then, by Heaven," cried the rector, "neither shall she! With my consent she shall never return to a man who reads such books as those," and he pointed to the row of Edwards,—"a man who denies good in anything outside his own miserable conception of religion; the very existence of whose faith is a denunciation and execration of every one who does not agree with him. You are firm, sir? So is she! I bid you good-day."

He turned to the door, breathing hard through his shut teeth. John Ward followed him, and laid his hand upon his arm. "Do not go," he said; "there is much I would like to say; and you will spend the night here with me? I beg that you will not go."

"The roof which refuses to shelter my niece," answered Dr. Howe, his voice shaking with anger, "shall not be over my head!"

"Then," said John slowly and gently, "you must listen now to what I have to say."

"Must!" cried the rector.

"Yes, for it is your duty to listen, as it is mine to speak. I dare not hear a servant of God set the opinion of the world above a conception of duty—no matter how strained and unnatural the duty may appear to him—and keep silence. I cannot listen when you urge Helen's temporal happiness, and refuse to consider her eternal welfare, and not tell you you are wrong. You evade the truth; you seek ease in Zion. I charge you, by the sacred name of Him whose minister you are, that you examine your own soul."

Dr. Howe looked at him, his face crimson with anger. "Sir," he stammered, flinging the detaining hand from his arm,—"sir!" And then, for the first time since Archibald Howe took orders, an oath burst from his lips; he struck his stick madly against the table, and rushed from the room.

Alfaretta was lying in wait for him at the garden gate, a large and rustic bunch of flowers in her hand, which she hoped he would carry to Helen.

"How's Mrs. Ward?" she said, trying to detain him. "When will she be home?"

"Get out of my way, girl!" he cried, and, slamming the gate behind him, he strode down the street.

When Dr. Howe reached his own door, Helen was waiting for him.

She had been sitting on the porch alone for more than an hour. She had been very quiet; there was none of that restlessness which excitement produced in her uncle or cousin; but when she saw Dr. Howe, she rose, and stood trembling at the head of the steps. The rector flung himself out of the carriage almost before it stopped.

"I want to see you, Helen," he said. "I have something to say to you. Come into the library."

She followed him silently, and when he had closed the door he turned and looked at her. "Now, my child," he began, "you must listen to what I have to say."

He stood with one hand on his hip, and lifted the forefinger of the other as he spoke. "I have seen that man. I have been insulted by him. He is as firm as the devil can make him that you shall not return to him. Now, I have no right to interfere between husband and wife; you are entirely free at any moment to follow any course you may wish. At the same time, I must tell you that I shall respect you more if you do not return to him. And I want to add one other thing: from this time, his name is not to be spoken in my presence."

Helen's face had grown slowly whiter. "Oh, you will not understand!" she said hoarsely; but he interrupted her.

"I am sorry for you, my darling. Oh, what a blow this would have been for your mother! Poor Mary felt any family trouble so deeply. But you must be a woman, you must bear it bravely. Yes, your marriage with this fanatic was a terrible mistake, but we must bear it."

Helen shook her head; she could not speak. She had not known that she had hoped anything from her uncle's visit, but this final despair almost over-powered her.

"He thinks you are going to change your mind in a week or two," he went on. "I'd say he was insane if he were not so cruel! There is too much method in his madness. There! I cannot speak of it; let us drop the subject. Your place in my heart is secure; I trust you will never leave me; but on this one topic we cannot meet." Then with a sudden tenderness, "Oh, Helen, how hard this is for you! You must try to forgive him,—I cannot."

"Forgive him?" she said, almost in a whisper, her beautiful eyes dilating and her lips white. "Oh, John, how I have wronged you, if they think I have anything to forgive!"

Dr. Howe looked at her, and seemed to swallow a sob; then he opened his arms, and, drawing her head down on his shoulder, "Poor child," he said, "poor child!"

But this softening on his part met no response from Helen. "You do not understand John," she said, "and so—so please do not think about me."

The rebuff sent the rector back to his own resentment. "Remember, I do not wish to speak of him again, Helen. I have nothing more to say."

Nor would he say more to Lois and Mrs. Dale than that John Ward was inflexible, and he wished no further discussion upon the subject; he also forbade any urging that Helen should return to her husband.

"Well, but, brother, what explanation shall we give of her being here?" asked Mrs. Dale anxiously.

"I'm sure I don't know," he answered impatiently; "anything but the truth."

"Why, Archibald!" his sister cried, in a shocked tone.

"Oh, well, you know what I mean," he said; "make some sort of an excuse. Of course, don't say anything which is untrue, but don't tell people our private affairs."

"Do you think she'll ever go back to him?" Mrs. Dale inquired, looking at him meditatively over her glasses.

"I hope not!" he said savagely. "Now stop, Adele, stop! I will not discuss that man!"

"Where did she get her obstinacy?" Mrs. Dale sighed. "I suppose it was from her father's side. And the whole affair is so ill-bred; one would know Helen was not all a Howe. I always felt there was something lacking in Charles Jeffrey, though poor dear Mary was so infatuated. Yes, I remember, when that sister of his came here to visit us, I did not feel sure, not at all sure, that the Jeffreys were really well-born people. She used to sit up straight and uncomfortable in a carriage. I never saw her lean back, and I always said that that girl's grandmother wasn't used to riding in carriages! So you see, that's where Helen gets her—her bad taste."

"Well, don't talk about it," said Dr. Howe, walking restlessly back and forth.

Mrs. Dale took off her glasses, and rubbed them on the corner of her black silk apron. "It would never have happened," she said positively, "if they had had children. I declare, I"—and she stopped, as though about to suggest that Helen should adopt a child at once. Mrs. Dale usually blamed John and Helen with equal impartiality, but to-day the fault seemed to belong entirely to her niece. She was very much puzzled to know how she was to "make excuses" without telling an untruth. "I'll just speak to Giff about it," she thought; "it all depends on the way Deborah Woodhouse hears it, and Giff is really quite sensible, and can advise me what to tell her."

She saw him that afternoon, but, as she said afterwards in reluctant confidence to her husband, "Giff hasn't much sense, after all. He thought it was best to just tell the truth about it."

"Yes?" responded Mr. Dale. "Well, I have often noticed, I am only apt to admire the good sense of people who agree with me. Gifford doubtless has not the advantage of feeling sure that his wishes constitute the standards of right and wrong."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Dale; "I am sure I don't know what you are talking about."

"Well, what are you going to do?" asked her husband.

"Oh," Mrs. Dale answered, "Gifford will tell Deborah Woodhouse the truth (Helen wants him to), but he will do it as carefully and as mildly as possible. And he will make her promise to keep it to herself. But you know Deborah Woodhouse; she trickles—there is no other word for it—everything. She couldn't keep a secret to save her life. But Helen will have it so. Oh, dear, dear, dear! Heaven save us from willful women!"

Gifford broke the news to his aunts as wisely as he knew how, but he did not hide the truth. It was not until the day before he went back to Lockhaven that he told them; he had put it off as long as he could, hoping, as Dr. Howe had done, that John Ward would see how useless it was to carry out his plan. Gifford had found the sisters together. Miss Ruth was at work in her studio, while Miss Deborah sat in the doorway, in the shadow of the grape-vines, topping and tailing gooseberries into a big blue bowl. She had a handful of crushed thyme in her lap, and some pennyroyal.

"It isn't roses," Miss Deborah remarked, "but it is better than Ruth's turpentine. And so long as I have got to sit here (for I will sit here while she's copying the miniature; it is a sacred charge), the pennyroyal is stronger than the paint."

Miss Ruth, her hands neatly gloved, was mixing her colors a little wearily; somehow, on her canvas, the face of the little sister lost what beauty it had ever known.

"I can't get the eyes," Miss Ruth sighed. "I have a great mind to help you with your preserving, sister."

"My dear Ruth," said Miss Deborah, with much dignity, "do I try to do your work?"

"But you know you couldn't paint, dear Deborah," said the younger sister eagerly. The round china-blue eyes of the little sister stared at her maliciously.

"Well," returned Miss Deborah, running her small hand through the gooseberries in the bowl, "neither could you make gooseberry jelly, or even a tart." Then seeing her nephew lounging down the flagged path to the door of the studio, his straw hat pushed back and his hands in his pockets, she was suddenly reminded of his packing. "I hope, Giff, dear," she cried, "you left plenty of room in your trunk? I have a number of articles I want you to take."

"There's lots of room, aunt Deborah," he answered. "You know I had to put in a bag of straw to fill up, when I came on,—I couldn't have things rattle around."

Miss Deborah laughed. "You need your aunt to look after you, my dear."

"Or a wife," said Miss Ruth, looking up at him over her gleaming spectacles.

"Nonsense," replied her sister vigorously; "don't put such ideas into his head, if you please. I must say such jokes are not in good taste, dear Ruth."

But Miss Ruth was more anxious about her light than Gifford's marriage. "You are really so big, Giff," she complained mildly, "you darken the whole studio, standing there in the doorway. Do pray sit down."

Gifford obediently took his seat upon the step, and this brought his face on a level with Miss Ruth's.

"Oh, that is nice," the little lady said, with gentle enthusiasm. "I shall have your eyes to look at. I have not been able to get the little sister's eyes just to suit me."

It made no difference to Miss Ruth that Gifford's eyes were gray and full of trouble. "Aunt Deborah," he said abruptly, "Helen Ward is not going back to Lockhaven for the present. Indeed, I do not know when she will go."

Miss Deborah forgot her gooseberries, in her surprise. "Not going back!" she cried, while her sister said, "Is Mr. Ward coming here?"

Then Gifford told them the story as briefly as he could, interrupted by small cries of amazement and dismay. "Well," exclaimed Miss Deborah, her delicate hands uplifted, "well! I never heard of such a thing! How shocking, how ill-bred! And she is going to be at the rectory? Ruth, my dear, you must never go there without me, do you hear? It is not proper. A wife separated from her husband! Dear me, dear me!"

"How can she leave him?" gasped Miss Ruth. "Married people ought to love each other so that they could not be parted."

"You have never been in a position to judge how they ought to love each other," said Miss Deborah sharply. "But this is what comes of youthful marriages, Gifford. A person should have reached years of maturity before thinking of marriage. Such things do not happen when people are reasonably old"—

"But not too old, sister," Miss Ruth interrupted, a little color creeping into her faded cheek.

Miss Deborah did not notice the amendment; she was anxious to hear the practical side of the matter, and had questions to ask about Helen's money, and whether Gifford supposed that that man would do anything for her; but except their grave disapproval that Helen should differ from her husband, nothing was said of theology. As they talked, the sisters grew full of sympathy, which waxed and waned as they thought of Helen's sorrow, or the impropriety of her action.

"I shall make her some jelly directly," said Miss Deborah, "and put in plenty of Madeira; the poor thing needs strength."

"This must be the reason," Miss Ruth said,—she had put her brushes down some time ago,—"that she was in such distress that day at her mother's grave. Oh, how trying this is for her! Indeed, I am sure death is easier to bear, when one—loves—than a parting like this."

"Really, dear Ruth," returned her sister, holding her head very straight, "you would not say that if you knew what it was to lose a—friend, by death. At least Mr. Ward is alive, even if Helen cannot see him. Ah, dear me! Well, I wonder how Adele Dale feels now? I should be miserable if we had such a thing happen in our family. A husband and wife quarrel, and separate! Shocking!"

"But there is no quarrel, you know," Gifford protested slowly, and for the third or fourth time.

But Miss Deborah brushed this aside. "They are separated; it is the same thing. In our family, an unhappy marriage was never known. Even when your grandfather's sister married a Bellingham,—and of course everybody knows the Bellingham temper,—and they quarreled, just three weeks to a day after the wedding, she never thought of such a disgraceful thing as leaving him. I have heard dear mamma say she never spoke to him again, except when she had to ask for money; that almost killed her, she was so proud. But she never would have lowered herself by leaving him. Yes, this is really most improper in poor dear Helen."

Miss Deborah's feelings vibrated, even while she was making the jelly, and though it was finally sent, she balanced her kindness by saying to Mrs. Dale that it did not seem just right for a young thing like Lois to know of such a painful affair. It gave Miss Deborah so much pleasure to say this to her old enemy that she made excuses for Helen for a whole day afterwards.

Late that afternoon Gifford went to say good-by at the rectory. It was a still, hazy August day, with a hint of autumn in the air; sometimes a yellowing leaf floated slowly down, or one would notice that the square tower of St. Michael's could be seen, and that the ivy which covered its south side was beginning to redden.

Miss Helen was not at home, Jean said. She thought she'd gone up to the graveyard,—she most always went there.

So Gifford started in search of her. "She ought not to be alone so much," he thought, and he wondered, with a man's dullness in such matters, why, if she and Lois had made up after that one quarrel, they were not the same tender friends. He met Lois at the rectory gate. She was coming from the village, and there was a look in her face which gave him a sudden jealous pain. She held a letter in her hand, and her eyes were running over with happiness; her lips smiled so that they almost broke into laughter as she spoke.

"Something seems to make you very happy, Lois?" he said.

"It does," she cried,—"very, very!"

"I am glad," he said, wishing she could find it in her heart to tell him of her joy.

"Forsythe has come to his senses," he thought. "I suppose he has been unusually loving, confound him!"

The two young people parted, each a little graver than when they met. "How he does like to be with Helen!" Lois thought, as she went on, and Gifford sighed impatiently as he wished Forsythe were more worthy of her.

He found Helen walking wearily home alone. "I wanted to say good-by," he said, taking her hand in his big warm grasp, "and just tell you that I'll look after him, you know, in any way I can. I'll see him every day, Helen." She looked at him gratefully, but did not speak. "I wish," Gifford continued, hesitating, "you would not take such long walks by yourself. Why don't you let Lois come with you?"

"She would not care to," she answered briefly.

"Oh, I think you are wrong there," he remonstrated. "She is lonely, too." Helen seemed to consider. "You know it has been an unhappy summer for Lois, and if you shut her out of your sorrow"—

"I did not mean to be selfish," she replied, not seeing how much Gifford spoke for her own sake, "and I do not shut her out; but so long as she only sympathizes with me, and not with John too, I cannot let her talk to me about it."

"That is not quite just, Helen," he said; and afterward, Helen acknowledged this.

She put her hands into his, when he turned to go home, and searched his face with sad, eager eyes. "You are going to see him,—oh, Giff, you'll see John!" she said.

Lois saw them talking, as they came to the rectory door, with a dull feeling of envy. Gifford never seemed to care to talk much to her. What was that Miss Deborah had said of his once caring for Helen? She had the good sense to be ashamed of herself for remembering it, but a thought which comes even into an unwilling mind cannot be driven away without leaving its impress; the point of view is subtilely and unconsciously changed. She was not altogether cordial to Gifford, when he said good-by to her, which he was quick to feel. "He thinks only of Helen," she said to herself. "I suppose he has forgotten anything he ever said to me, and my promise, too. I'm ready enough with promises," she thought, with a bitter little smile. But even this memory could not keep that happiness which Gifford had seen from shining in her eyes; and when she went up-stairs, Helen noticed it.

Perhaps because of Gifford's gentle reproof, she roused herself to say, as he had done, "You are very happy, Lois?"

"Oh, I am, I am!" she cried impulsively, "Oh, Helen, I have something to tell you." A very little sympathy in her cousin's voice brought her eager confidence to her lips. "Oh, Helen, a letter has come!"

"John?" she hardly breathed. For one exquisite moment, which had yet its background that he had not been strong, Helen misunderstood her.

"No, it's only something about me," Lois answered humbly.

"Tell me," Helen said gently. "If anything makes you happy, you know I'll be glad."

Lois twisted her fingers together, with a nervous sort of joy. "I've just heard," she said; "Mrs. Forsythe has just written to me."

"And she is very well?" Helen asked. She had almost forgotten her cousin's grief and anxiety about Mrs. Forsythe. It all seemed so long ago and so unimportant.

"No, no," Lois said, "she says she's very sick; but oh, Helen, Dick Forsythe is engaged to be married!"

Helen looked puzzled. "I don't understand."

"Never mind," Lois cried joyously, "he is, and I am so happy!"

When the summer had faded into autumn, Ashurst had not yet recovered from the social earthquake of discovering that it had the scandal of an unhappy marriage within its decorous borders. There had been nothing which had so shaken the foundation of things since Gertrude Drayton had run away with her dancing-master, who, it was more than suspected, had left a wife in France. That sensation lasted a long time, for William Denner's face was a constant reminder of his grief; but by and by it faded, and, as Gertrude never came back to Ashurst, people even said very kindly things about her.

But Helen Ward continued to live among them.

Indeed, the excitement was so great at first that Miss Deborah did not remember for some time to write to Gifford that Dick Forsythe was engaged to a New York girl. "She really could scarcely blame him," she had added, "for he could hardly be expected to keep his engagement with Lois after this disgraceful affair in her family."

Gifford read that part of the letter again, dizzy with happiness and pain. "How she must suffer!" he said to himself. "The cur! Ah, she never could have married him; she must have discovered his contemptible nature."

His first impulse was to hurry to Ashurst. "Not for my own sake," he reasoned, "but just to be there. I would never show that I knew how he had treated her. She should not have an instant's mortification in my presence. But she might just see, without being told, that I loved her through it all."

He even rose, and began to study a time-table; but he frowned a little and put it down, and went and looked out of the window a while. "Helen would be more unhappy if she thought I were not here to look after Ward. Yes, I must wait till he gets stronger. Perhaps next month"—

Then, shaking himself together, with a revulsion of common sense, "As she is unhappy, she won't care whether I'm there or not, or may be she'd rather I wasn't!"

Yet, though he could not easily subdue the desire to rush to Ashurst, the thought that Helen's sorrow would be a little greater if she could not think of him as near her husband, helped to keep him at his post.

But it might have been good for Helen to have had the young man's frank and healthy understanding of her position. She was growing every day more lonely and self-absorbed; she was losing her clear perceptions of the values of life; she became warped, and prejudiced, and very silent. She even fancied, with a morbid self-consciousness which would have been impossible before, that she had never possessed the love of her uncle and cousin, and had always been an alien. This subtile danger to her generous nature was checked in an unexpected way.

One afternoon, late in September, she went as usual, alone, to the graveyard on East Hill. The blue haze lay like a ribbon through the valley and across the hills; the air was still, and full of the pungent fragrance of burning brush, and yellow leaves rustled about her feet. The faded grass had been beaten down by the rain, and was matted above the graves; here and there a frosted weed stood straight and thin against the low soft sky; some late golden-rod blazed along the edge of the meadow among the purple asters, and a single stalk of cardinal flowers flashed out beside the lichen-covered wall; but all the rest of the world was a blur of yellow and gray. Helen sat down on a stone, and listened to the small wood sounds around her. A beech leaf, twisted like the keel of a fantastic boat, came pattering down on the dead leaves; a bird stirred in the pine behind her, and now and then a cricket gave a muffled chirp.

It was here Mr. Dale found her, her head resting forlornly on her hands; she was absently watching a gray squirrel who had ventured from his cover in the wall, and was looking at her with curious twinkling eyes.

"My dear," said Mr. Dale gently, "they told me at the rectory they thought you were up here, so I came to see if you would let me walk home with you."

Helen started as he spoke, and the squirrel scampered away. "Did you come for that?" she said, touched in spite of her bitter thoughts.

Mr. Dale pushed his broad-brimmed hat back on his head, so that his face seemed to have a black aureola around it. "Yes," he replied, regarding her with anxious blue eyes,—"yes. I am grieved to have you so much alone; yet I know how natural it is to desire to be alone."

Helen did not answer.

"I hope," he went on, hesitating, "you will not think I intrude if I say—I came because I wanted to say that I have a great respect for your husband, Helen."

Helen turned sharply, as though she would have clasped his hands, and then put her own over her face, which was quivering with sudden tears.

Mr. Dale touched her shoulder gently. "Yes, a great respect. Love like his inspires reverence. It is almost divine."

Helen's assent was inaudible.

"Not, my dear," the old man continued, "that I do not regret—yes, with all my heart I deplore—the suffering for you both, by which his love is proved. Yet I recognize with awe that it is love. And when one has come so near the end of life as I have, it is much to have once seen love. We look into the mysteries of God when we see how divine a human soul can be. Perhaps I have no right to speak of what is so sacredly yours, yet it is proper that you should know that the full meaning of this calamity can be understood. It is not all grief, Helen, to be loved as you are."

She could not speak; she clung to him in a passion of tears, and the love and warmth she had thought she should never feel again began to stir about her heart.

"So you will be strong for him," Mr. Dale said gently, his wrinkled hand stroking her soft hair. "Be patient, because we have perhaps loved you too much to be just to him; yet your peace would teach us justice. Be happier, my dear, that we may understand him. You see what I mean?"

Helen did see; courage began to creep back, and her reserve melted and broke down with a storm of tears, too long unshed. "I will try," she said brokenly,—"oh, I will try!" She did not say what she would try to do, but to struggle for John's sake gave her strength and purpose for all of life. She would so live that no one could misunderstand him.

Mr. Dale walked home with her, but he did not speak to her again of her sorrow. The impulse had been given, and her conscience aroused; the harder struggle of coming back to the daily life of others she must meet alone. And she met it bravely. Little by little she tried to see the interests and small concerns of people about her, and very gradually the heavy atmosphere of the rectory began to lighten. Dr. Howe scarcely knew how it was that there was a whist party in his library one Friday evening; rather a silent one, with a few sighs from the Misses Woodhouse and a suspicious dimness in Mr. Dale's eyes. The rector somehow slipped into the vacant chair; he said he thought he was so old whist would not hurt him, if they were willing to teach him. But as he swept the board at the first deal, and criticised his partner's lead at the second, instruction was deemed superfluous.

By degrees, Lois and Helen came nearer together. There was no explanation: the differences had been too subtile for words, at least on Lois's side, and to have attempted it would have made a vague impression harden into permanence.

No one recognized an effort on Helen's part, and she only knew it herself when she realized that it was a relief to be with Mr. Dale. He understood; she could be silent with him. So she came very often to his little basement office, and spent long mornings with him, helping him label some books, or copying notes which he had intended "getting into shape" these twenty years. She liked the stillness and dimness of the small room, with its smell of leather-covered volumes, or whiff of wood smoke from the fireplace.

Mrs. Dale rarely disturbed them. "If Helen finds any pleasure in that musty old room," she said, one cold January morning, "I'm sure I'm glad. But she would be a great deal more sensible and cheerful if she'd sit up in the parlor with me, if she didn't do anything more than play patience. But then, Helen never was like other people."

And so she left her niece and her husband, with a little good-natured contempt in her eyes, and went up to her own domains. Mr. Dale was arranging some plants on a shelf across one of the windows, and Helen was watching him. "They generally die before the winter is out," he said, "but perhaps with you to look after them they'll pull through."

He was in his flowered dressing-gown, and was standing on tiptoe, reaching up for one of the mildewed flower-pots. "These are orange plants," he explained proudly. "I planted the seeds a month ago, and see how they've grown." He put his glasses on and bent down to examine them, with an absorbed look. The pot that held the six spindling shoots had streaks of white mould down its sides, and the earth was black and hard with the deluge of water with which Mr. Dale's anxious care usually began the season. He began now to loosen it gently with his penknife, saying, "I'm sure they'll flourish if you look after them."

"I will if I'm here, uncle Henry," she replied.

"Ah, my dear," he said, looking at her sharply, "you are not thinking of that hospital plan again?"

"Yes," she answered, "I cannot help it. I feel as though I must be of some use in the world." She was standing in the stream of wintry sunshine which flooded the narrow window, and Mr. Dale saw that some white threads had begun to show in the bronze-brown waves of her hair. "Yes," she continued, "it is so hard to keep still. I must do something, and be something."

Mr. Dale stopped digging in his flower-pots, and looked at her without speaking for a moment; then he said, "I wonder if you will not be something nobler by the discipline of this quiet life, Helen? And are you not really doing something if you rouse us out of our sleepy satisfaction with our own lives, and make us more earnest? I know that cannot be your object, as it would defeat itself by self-consciousness, but it is true, my dear."

She did not speak.

"You see," he went on, in his gentle voice, "your life cannot be negative anywhere. You have taken a stand for a vital principle, and it must make us better. Truth is like heat or light; its vibrations are endless, and are endlessly felt. There is something very beautiful to me, Helen, speaking of truth, that you and your husband, from absolutely opposite and extreme points, have yet this force of truth in your souls. You have both touched the principle of life,—he from one side, you from the other. But you both feel the pulse of God in it!"

"You know," she said gratefully, "you understand"—She stopped abruptly, for she saw Lois coming hurriedly along the road, and when she opened the gate she ran across the snowy lawn to Mr. Dale's office, instead of following the path. There was something in her face which made Helen's heart stand still.

She could not wait for her to reach the door, but went out bareheaded to meet her.

Lois took her hands between her own, which were trembling. "Gifford has sent a dispatch. I—I came to bring it to you, Helen."

Her cousin put out her hand for the telegram.

"I'm afraid John is ill," Lois said, the quick tears springing to her eyes.

"Give it to me," said Helen.

Reluctantly Lois gave her the dispatch, but she scarcely looked at it. "Uncle Henry," she said, for Mr. Dale had followed her, and stood in speechless sympathy, his white hair blowing about in the keen wind, "I will go to Mercer now. I can make the train. Will you let me have your carriage?"

Her voice was so firm and her manner so calm Lois was deceived. "She does not understand how ill John is," she thought.

But Mr. Dale knew better. "How love's horror of death sweeps away all small things," he said, as he sat alone in his study that night,—"time, hope, fear, even grief itself!"

His wife did not enter into such analysis; she had been summoned, and had seen to wraps and money and practical things, and then had gone crying up-stairs. "Poor child," she said, "poor child! She doesn't feel it yet."

A calamity like this Mrs. Dale could understand; she had known the sorrow of death, and all the impatience which had stood between Helen and herself was swept away in her pitying sympathy.

As for Lois, Helen had not forbidden her, and she too had gone to Mercer. Helen had not seemed even to notice her presence in the carriage, and she dared not speak. She thought, in a vague way, that she had never known her cousin before. Helen, with white, immovable face, sat leaning forward, her hand on the door, her tearless eyes straining into the distance, and a tense, breathless air of waiting about her.

"May I go to Lockhaven with you?" Lois asked softly; but Helen did not answer until she had repeated the question, and then she turned with the start of one suddenly wakened, and looked at her.

"Oh, you are here?" she said. "You were good to come, but you must not go further than Mercer." Then she noticed that the window beside Lois was open, and leaned forward to close it. After that, she lapsed again into her stony silence.

When they reached the station, it was she who bought the ticket, and then again seemed startled to find the girl by her side. "Good-by," she said, as Lois kissed her, but there was no change in her face, either of relief or regret, when her cousin left her.

How that long slow journey passed Helen never knew. She was not even conscious of its length. When Gifford met her, she gave him one questioning look.

"Yes," he said tenderly, "you are in time. He would not let me send before, Helen; and I knew you would not come unless I said, 'John sends for you.'"

"No," she answered. He told her, in their quick ride to the parsonage, that this had been the third hemorrhage, and John had not rallied; but it was not until the night before that he had known the end was inevitable and near, and had sent for his wife.

Oh, the strangeness of those village streets! Had she ever been away? These months in Ashurst were a dream; here only was reality and death.

Alfaretta could not speak as she met them at the gate, but ran by Helen's side, and furtively kissed her hand. There was a light burning in the study, but Helen stood at the table in the hall and took off her bonnet and cloak.

"I will go and tell him you are here," Gifford said, trying to detain her as she turned to go up-stairs.

"He knows," she said calmly, and left Gifford and the servant standing in the entry.

She did not even pause at the door; there seemed no need to gather strength for the shock of that meeting; she was all strength and love.

The room was lighted only by the fire, and the bed was in shadow.

There were no words; those empty, dying arms were stretched out to her, and she gathered him close to her heart.

The house was strangely silent. Again and again Gifford crept up to the door, but all was quite still; once he heard that soft sound which a mother makes when she soothes her baby on her breast, and again a low murmur, which died away as though even words were an intrusion.

All that long winter day, Gifford, in his intense anxiety lest Helen should not come in time, and his distress for the sorrow of this little household, had been calmed and comforted by John's serene courage. He knew that death was near, but there was an exultant look in his fading eyes, and sometimes his lips moved in grateful prayer. Perhaps his physical extremity had dulled his fears for his wife's salvation into a conviction that his death was to be the climax of God's plans for her. He was bewildered at the temptation of greater joy at the prospect of her presence than gratitude that God should save her soul alive. But he never for one moment doubted she would come to tell him she had found the light.

The night wore heavily on. Gifford stationed himself upon the stairs, outside the door; the doctor came, and then went quietly down to John's study, and found a book to while away the time. And then they waited.

When the first faint lightening of the sky came and the chill of dawn began to creep through the silent house, Helen came out of the closed room. She put her hand upon Gifford's shoulder. "Go and rest," she said; "there is no need to sit here any longer. John is dead."

After it was all over, they begged her to go back to Ashurst.

"You can't stay here," Lois entreated—she had come with Mr. Dale as soon as the news of John Ward's death reached Ashurst—"you can't live among these people, Helen."

But Helen shook her head. "They are John's people. I cannot go yet."

Lois thought with a shiver of the exhortations of the clergymen who had come to the funeral to officiate. She wondered how Helen could stay where every one had heard her sin of unbelief publicly prayed for; yet, with her cousin's brave sad eyes upon her, she dared not give this as a reason why Helen should leave Lockhaven.

Mr. Dale did not urge her to return; he knew her too well. He only said when he went away, holding her hands in his and looking at her, his gentle old face quivering with tears, "He is all yours now, my dear; death has given you what life could not. No matter where you are, nothing can change the perfect possession."

There was a swift, glad light in the eyes she lifted to his for a moment, but she did not answer.

At first she had been stunned and dazed; she had not realized what her sorrow was; an artificial courage came to her in the thought that John was free, and the terrible and merciful commonplace of packing and putting in order, hid her from herself.

She had stayed behind in the small brown parsonage, with only Alfaretta for a companion, and Gifford's unspoken sympathy when he came every day to see her. Once she answered it.

"I am glad it is John instead of me," she said, with an uplifted look; "the pain is not his."

"And it is so much happier for him now," Gifford ventured to say,—"he must see so clearly; and the old grief is lost in joy."

"No," Helen answered wearily; "you must not say those things to me. I cannot feel them. I am glad he has no pain,—in an eternal sleep there is at least no pain. But I must just wait my life out, Gifford. I cannot hope; I dare not. I could not go on living if I thought he were living somewhere, and needing me. No, it is ended. I have had my life."

She listened in eager and pathetic silence to every detail of John's life since she had left him which Alfaretta or Gifford could give her. A little later, she asked them both to write out all that they remembered of those last days. She dared not trust the sacred memory only to her heart, lest the obliterating years should steal it from her. And then, by and by, she gathered up all her power of endurance, and quietly went back to Ashurst. That last night in the little low-browed parsonage not even Alfaretta was with her. Gifford left her on the threshold with a terrible fear in his heart, and he came to the door again very early in the morning; but she met him calmly, with perfect comprehension of the anxiety in his face.

"You need not be afraid for me," she said. "I do not dare to be a coward."

And then she walked to the station, without one look back at the house where she had known her greatest joy and greatest grief.

The summer had left spring far behind, when Gifford Woodhouse came to Ashurst.

He could not stay in Lockhaven; the tragedy of John Ward had thrown a shadow upon him. The people did not forget that he was Mrs. Ward's friend, and they made no doubt, the bolder ones said, that Lawyer Woodhouse was an infidel, too. So he decided to take an office in Mercer. This would make it possible for him to come back to Ashurst every Saturday, and be with his aunts until Monday.

Perhaps he did not know it, but Lockhaven shadows seemed deeper than they really were because Mercer was only twelve miles from Lois Howe. Not that that could mean anything more than just the pleasure of seeing her sometimes. Gifford told himself he had no hope. He searched her occasional letters in vain for the faintest hint that she would be glad to see him. "If there were the slightest chance of it," he said, with a sigh, "of course I'd know it. She promised. I suppose she was awfully attached to that puppy."

However, in spite of hopelessness, he went to Mercer, and soon it became a matter of course that he should drop in at the rectory every Sunday, spending the evening with Helen after Dr. Howe and Lois had gone to church.

Helen never went. "I cannot," she said to Gifford once; "the service is beautiful and stately, and full of pleasant associations, but it is outside of my life. If I had ever been intensely religious, it would be different, I suppose,—I should care for it as a sacred past; but it was never more than pleasant. What I called my spiritual life had no reality to me. And now, surely, I cannot go, when I have no faith at all."

"I think you will go, some day, Helen," Gifford said thoughtfully; "the pendulum has to swing very far away from the extreme which you have seen before the perfect balance comes. And I think you make a mistake when you say you have no faith. Perhaps you have no creed, but faith, it seems to me, is not the holding of certain dogmas; it is simply openness and readiness of heart to believe any truth which God may show."

They were sitting on the porch at the rectory; the fragrant dusk of the garden was beginning to melt into trembling light as the moon rose, and the last flush of sunset faded behind the hills. Helen had a soft white wrap over her black dress, but Gifford had thought it was cool enough to throw a gray shawl across her feet; he himself was bareheaded, and sat on the steps, clasping his knees with his hands.

"Perhaps so," Helen said, "but I think I am like a person who walks along in the dark, yet looks toward the east. I will not comfort myself with little candles of memory or desire, and say, 'This is light!' Perhaps light will never come to my eyes, but I will wait, for I believe there is light somewhere."

It was much for Helen to say this. No one had guessed what was behind her reserve on such subjects; perhaps no one had very greatly cared.

"Gifford!" she said suddenly. He looked up, surprised at her tone.

"Yes, Helen?"

"I wish," she said, "I wish you were as happy as you deserve to be."

He knew what she meant, and would not repay her confidence by pretending not to understand. "Well, I'm not as happy as I desire, perhaps, but no doubt I'm as happy as I deserve."

"No," she answered, "you are not. And oh, Gifford, there is so much sorrow in the world, the only thing which makes life possible is love, because that is the only thing which does not change."

"I am afraid it can never be for me," he said, after a moment's silence, "except the joy of giving love."

"Why?" she asked gently.

Gifford did not speak; he rose, and began to pace up and down in front of the porch, crossing and recrossing the square of light which fell from the open hall door. "I ought not to talk about it," he said at last. "I've got it down at the very bottom of my life, a sort of foundation stone on which to build noble things. Your words make it spring up into a whole palace of beauty; but it is in the air,—it is in the air! You know what I mean: it must always be giving with me; she will never care. She never could, having loved once. And it is curious, Helen, but in a certain paradoxical way I'm content she shouldn't. She would not be the woman she is, if she could love twice."

Helen smiled in the darkness. "Gifford"—she began.

But he interrupted her, flinging his head back, in impatient despair. "No, it cannot be, or it would have been, don't you see? Don't encourage me, Helen; the kindest thing you can do is to kill any hope the instant it shows its head. There was a time, I was fool enough to think—it was just after the engagement was broken. But I soon saw from her letters there was no chance for me."

"But Gifford,"—Helen almost forgot to protect Lois, in her anxiety to help him,—"you must not think that. They were never engaged."

Gifford stood still and looked at her; then he said something in a low voice, which she could not hear.

"I must not say another word," she said hurriedly. "I've no right even to speak as I did. But oh, Gifford, I could not see you lose a chance of happiness. Life is so short, and there is so much sorrow! I even selfishly wanted the happiness of your joy, for my own sake."

Still Gifford did not speak; he turned sharply on his heel, and began his restless walk. His silence was getting unbearable, when he stopped, and said gently, "I thank you, Helen. I do not understand it all, but that's no matter. Only, don't you see, it doesn't make any difference? If she had been going to care, I should have known it long ago."

This was very vague to Helen; she wondered if Lois had refused him again. But Gifford began to talk quietly of his life in Mercer, and she did not venture to say anything more. "After all, they must work out their own salvation," she thought. "No one can help them, when they both know the facts."

She listened a little absently to Gifford, who was speaking of the lack of any chance for advancement in Mercer. "But really," he added, "I ought not to go too far away from my aunts, now; and I believe that the highest development of character can come from the most commonplace necessities of life." Helen sighed; she wondered if this commonplace of Ashurst were her necessity? For again she was searching for her place in the world,—the place that needed her, and was to give her the happiness of usefulness; and she had even thought vaguely that she might find some work in Lockhaven, among John's people, and for them. They both fell into the silence of their own thoughts, until the rector and his daughter came back from church, and Gifford went home.

That next week was a thoughtful one with Gifford Woodhouse; Helen's words had stirred those buried hopes, and it was hard to settle back into a life of renunciation. He was strangely absent-minded in his office. One day Willie Denner, who had come to read law, and was aspiring to be his clerk, found him staring out of the window, with a new client's papers lying untouched before him. After all, he thought, would it be wrong, would it trouble Lois (he had said he should never trouble her), if he just told her how the thought of her helped him, how she was a continual inspiration in his life? "If I saw it bothered her, I could stop," he argued.

And so, reasoning with himself, he rode over from Mercer late that Saturday night. The little ladies were, as usual, delighted to see him. These weekly visits were charming; their nephew could be admired and fussed over to their hearts' content, but was off again before they had time to feel their small resources at an end. The next morning he dutifully went to church with them. Sunday was a proud day for the Misses Woodhouse; each took an arm of the young man, whose very size made him imposing, and walked in a stately way to the door of St. Michael's. They would gladly have been supported by him to their pew, but it would have been, Miss Deborah said, really flaunting their nephew in the faces of less fortunate families, for Ashurst could not boast of another young man.

Miss Ruth wore her new bonnet that day in honor of his presence. She had taken it from the bandbox and carefully removed its wrapping of tissue paper, looking anxiously at the clouds as she smoothed the lavender strings and pinched the white asters on the side, before she decided that it was safe to wear it.

Gifford looked up the rectory lane as they drew near the church, and Miss Deborah noticed it. "Giff, dear," she asked, "did you observe, last Sunday, how ill poor little Lois looked?"

"No," he said, somewhat startled.

"Ah, yes," said Miss Ruth, nodding her head so that the white asters trembled, "she has never really gotten over that disappointment about young Forsythe."

"But she was not engaged to him," responded Gifford boldly.

"Not engaged," Miss Deborah admitted, "but she fully expected to be. He did not treat her honorably; there is no doubt of that. But her affections were unalterably his."

"How do you know that?" demanded her nephew.

"Why, my dear child," said Miss Ruth, "there is no doubt of it. Adele Dale told dear Deborah the whole story. Of course she had it from Lois."

"Not that it makes the slightest difference in my position," Gifford thought, as he sat crowding down the pain of it, and looking at Lois, sitting in the rosy light of the window of the left transept. "I am just where I was before, and I'll tell her, if it does not seem to bother her."

After church, there was the usual subdued gossip about the door, and while Gifford waited for his aunts, who had something to say to the rector, he listened to Mrs. Dale, who said in her incisive voice, "Isn't it too bad Helen isn't here? I should think, whether she wanted to or not, she'd come for her husband's sake." Even the apology of death had not made Mrs. Dale pardon John Ward.

But Mr. Dale mildly interjected,—"She would stay away for his sake, if she did not really want to come."

To which Mrs. Dale responded, "Fudge!"

Miss Deborah also spoke of her absence to Lois. "Sorry dear Helen is not here, but of course Gifford will see her to-night. He does so enjoy his evenings with her. Well, they are both young—and I have my thoughts!"

So, with the utmost innocence, Miss Deborah had planted the seeds of hopelessness and jealousy in the hearts of both these young people. Gifford spent the rest of the long, still Sunday wandering restlessly through the house, and changing his mind about speaking to Lois every few minutes. Lois was very distant that evening at the rectory, so Gifford talked mostly to Helen. There was no chance to say what he had intended, and he made none.