self. She
remained there a long time thinking of many things, and was still lost
in meditation when Everard joined her.

"A penny for your thoughts," he said.

"Oh, Everard, I want you to do something," she returned, laying her hand
on his arm.

"What is it, dearest?" he inquired.

"I feel so unhappy about Louis. I wish so much that you would write and
say that we forgive him."

Everard was silent, and his face became very stern.

"If you would, I should be so glad."

"You ask too much," he said.

"Only what is right."

"Right perhaps, but hard--very hard."

"Oh, do," she pleaded, raising her blue eyes to his so earnestly.
"Oh, Everard, it is not the way for us to be happy, to be unforgiving.
I should be so miserable: day by day watching the blue waters, knowing
that I had left any one in anger or ill-feeling. Oh, Everard, you will
forgive him!"

She looked so lovely there in the moonlight, pleading for one who so
little deserved it of her, that Everard found it hard to refuse her.

"I cannot write a lie, Isabel, even to please you," he replied, in a
harsh, unnatural voice.

"Oh, no, not that; but I want you really to forgive him."

"I do not, I cannot," and his voice was hard and cold.

Isabel shuddered. Was this the Everard usually so kind and gentle?

"Oh, Everard, and you a clergyman!"

"Perhaps I am not fit to be one," he answered. "I have thought so
sometimes lately, but I wished so much to be one that, in seeking to
fulfil the wish, I may have overlooked the meetness."

"If you are not, I do not know who is," she said, "but this is not
like yourself; I should be less surprised if I was unforgiving and you
forgave."

"I hope that I do not often feel as I do now towards him. But you forget
how nearly he took you from me; he whom I trusted and regarded with the
warmest friendship."

"It is not for his sake I ask it Everard; forgive as you would be
forgiven."

They walked on in silence until they reached the house. Then Everard
said, "From my heart I wish I could, Isabel," and abruptly left her.
Then, alone in his own room, after all had retired to rest, far into the
night he fought the battle of good and evil. What was he about to
do--preach and teach meekness, self-denial, and forgiveness of injuries,
while he was still angry and unforgiving? What mockery! Ought he not to
practice what he taught? Was theory--mere words--sufficient? No; he
must, by example, give force to his teaching, or