m and lift him up. By the time
he left her house this Saturday evening, he felt that he had found a
soul stronger and warmer than his own, and was already a little afraid
of it. Every man who has at last succeeded, after long effort, in
calling up the divinity which lies hidden in a woman's heart, is
startled to find that he must obey the God he summoned.

Esther herself was more astonished than Hazard at the force of this
feeling which swept her away. She suddenly found herself passionately
attached to a man, whom, down to the last moment, she had thought she
could never marry, and now could no more imagine life without him than
she could conceive of loving any one else. For the moment she thought
that his profession was nothing to her; she could believe whatever he
believed and do whatever he did; and if her love, backed by her will,
were not strong enough to make his life her own, she cared little what
became of her, and could look with indifference on life itself. So far
as she was concerned she thought herself ready to worship Woden or Thor,
if he did.

The next morning she could not let him preach without being near him,
and she made Catherine go with her to St. John's. They took their seats,
not in her own pew but in a corner, where no one should notice them
under their veils. The experiment was full of peril, though Esther did
not know it. This new excitement, coming so swiftly after a fortnight of
exhaustion, threw her back into a state of extreme nervousness. Of
course the scene of Saturday evening was followed by a sleepless night,
and when Sunday morning came, her very restlessness made her hope that
she should find repose and calm within the walls of the church. She went
believing that she needed nothing so much as the quieting influence of
the service, and she was not disappointed, for her sweetest
associations were here, and as she glanced timidly up to the
scaffolding where her romance had been acted, she felt at home and
happy, in spite of the crowd of people who swarmed about her and
separated her from the things she loved. In the background stood the
solemn and awful associations of the last few weeks, the mysteries and
terrors of death, drawing her from thought of earthly things to visions
of another world. Full of these deep feelings, saturated with the elixir
of love, Esther succumbed to the first notes of the church music. Tears
of peaceful delight stood in her eyes. She glanced up towards her
C