was, he found himself saying what he would have laughed to scorn a
few months before.

"Thank you, Olive," he said, still holding her hand, "you have given me
a new life to live." He hesitated a moment, and then went on speaking
again. "I want to tell you this," he said. "Although I am unworthy of
you, I will try and make myself worthy. That promise I made yesterday I
will keep. Yes, I will keep it. And--and if there is a God, I will find
Him."

He spoke the words reverently. There was not a touch of the cynic in his
voice; it was even as he felt. God had used this woman to lead him the
first step towards his salvation.

"You have no doubt, no fear, Olive?" he said.

"No," she said quietly, "not one. I believe you, I trust you
implicitly."

"And you love me?"

"Yes," she said.

"Really and truly. You know what I mean?" He spoke quietly and slowly,
but his voice trembled.

"How could I say what I have said--else?" There was a sob in her voice
as she spoke, and yet the sob sounded like a laugh.

"Thank God!"

He did not believe, this man, that God existed, and yet it was the only
way that he could express the great joy of his heart. Never, until then,
had he known what happiness meant. The old, hopeless, purposeless past
was forgotten; that night his history began anew.

* * * * *

After dinner that night, John Castlemaine and Radford Leicester talked
long and earnestly. It was no light matter to the father to promise his
child in marriage; moreover, although he admired Leicester, and while he
believed that a great career was possible to him, he did not feel quite
happy. For John Castlemaine belonged to the old school of thought, and
he had no sympathy with the modern looseness of ideas. He came of a
stock who for more than a hundred years had fought the battle of
religious liberty, and who had been ready to sacrifice their goods, even
their lives, for principle. He was a Puritan of the best order. He
retained all their old strong characteristics, he stood for their
noblest ideals, without adhering to much that was sunless and repugnant.
He was a happy, genial man, kind almost to indulgence as far as his
daughter went, but he was strong in his hatred of the so-called morals
of that class to which Leicester was supposed to belong. Moreover, Olive
was his only child. Upon her he had poured the wealth of his affection,
and thus the thought of giving her to a man was no light mat