er flash of
enlightenment. They had been praying for the same thing. He, too, had
prayed for the blessing which maketh rich--and he had meant _her_. She
knew it. He had been asking God to give her to him. Horrible!

Common sense shrank back before the invading flood of fear. What if God
had listened? What if He had answered? Ministers, she knew, have great
influence with God. What if He had said, "Yes"? What if all the trouble
of last night, the blankness of to-day, were part of the answer?

"Never! Never!" she said. She almost said it aloud, so real had her fear
been. Her eyes, fixed upon the minister's face, were terrified, but her
soul was strong. Fearful of blasphemy, yet brave, she faced the bogie of
a God her thought had evoked, saying, "I make my own choice. Take my
lover from me if you will--I shall never give myself to another."

All this was very wrong, shocking even, especially in church. But it
really happened and is apt to happen any Sunday in any church so long as
human love rebels at the idea of a Divine love less tender than itself.

Gradually the panic fear died down. Esther's sane and well-balanced
nature began to assert itself. Some voice, small but insistent, began to
say, "God is not like that," and she listened and was comforted. She had
not yet come to the love which casts out fear, but she was done with the
fear which casts out love.

So that when on the church steps in the sunshine she felt Angus
Macnair's hand tremble in hers, she was able to meet his eyes,
straightly, understandingly, but unafraid.

CHAPTER XXVI

The manner in which Dr. Callandar spent that tragic Sunday is not
clearly on record. We have watched Esther so closely that he has been
permitted to escape our observation, and it would be manifestly unfair
to expect any coherent account of the day from him. He knows that he
went for a walk, early, and that he walked all day. He remembers once
resting by the willow-fringed pool which had seen his introduction into
Coombe, but he could not stay there. Between him and that hot June day
lay the wreck of a world. Once he stumbled upon the Pine Lake road and
followed it a little way. But here, too, memory came too close and drove
him aside into the fields. There he tried to face his future fairly,
under the calm sky. But it was hard work. With such a riot of feeling,
it was difficult to think. His mind continually fell away into the
contemplation of his own misery. It was a