g you want, darling. I don't care! Only love me,
John. And if my ideas offend your people, let us leave Lockhaven; or I
can keep silence, unless I should have to speak for what seems to me
truth's sake."

And then John tried to show her how he had wronged his people and been
false to his own vows and that he dared not leave them until he had
rooted out the evil his own neglect had allowed to grow up among them,
and that her mere silence would not reach the root of the evil in her own
soul. And the importance of it!

"Oh," he cried, once, when they had been talking until late into the
night, "is not your soul's life of importance, Helen? When I see you
going down to eternal death because I have failed in my duty to you, can
I satisfy myself by saying, We love one another? Because I love you, I
cannot be silent. Oh, I have wronged you, I have not loved you enough!
I have been content with the present happiness of my love,--my happiness!
I had no thought of yours."

So they had gone over and over the subject, until to Helen it seemed
threadbare, and they sat now in the dusky library, with long stretches of
silence between their words.

Alfaretta brought in the lamps. In view of Mrs. Ward's departure for
a fortnight, her father, still with an eye to wages, deferred giving
notice. "Besides," he thought, "Mrs. Ward may be convicted and converted
after she's been dealt with."

Helen had risen, and was writing some instructions for her maid: just
what was to be cooked for the preacher, and what precautions taken for
his comfort. As she put her pen down, she turned to look at her husband.
He was sitting, leaning forward, with his head bowed upon his hand, and
his eyes covered.

"Helen," he said, in a low, repressed voice, "once more, just once more,
let me entreat you; and then we will not speak of this before you go."

She sighed. "Yes, dearest, say anything you want."

There was a moment's silence, and then John rose, and stood looking down
at her. "I have such a horror of your going away. I do not understand it;
it is more than the grief and loneliness of being without you for a few
days. It is vague and indefinable, but it is terribly real. Perhaps it is
the feeling that atonement for my sin towards you is being placed out of
my reach. You will be where I cannot help you, or show you the truth. Yet
you will try to find it! I know you will. But now, just this last night,
I must once more implore you to open your hear