asked timidly.

He did not look at the little hand she outstretched. "If we cannot be
more than friends, we must be less now," he answered coldly.

He bade her an abrupt good-night and she watched him depart. Still
standing where he had left her she looked through the graceful palms
that from their setting of marble partially veiled the drawing-room
from the hall and saw him standing, never so handsome as now in his
pale sternness, fastidiously drawing on his gloves according to his
wont.

Her heart made a final appeal. Was she mad, that she should drive him
away when _she loved him_? Let her call him back! Love is sovereign.
Let it rule.

As a very tiny object may blot out the widest view if it be near enough
to the vision, so this glittering treasure of an earthly love swung
before her eyes, and it hid the broader prospect of fair and eternal
joys in Christ. "Command that these stones be made bread," one had
said to her Lord when he hungered, and the same strong and subtle one
counseled now: "Take the joy that is offered! Your heart will be
starved and desolate if you let it go. Call him back!"

Almost her weak heart assented.

"George!" the cry rose, but it died, mercifully, in a whisper upon her
dry lips.

Frothingham had quite prepared himself to emerge from the house--for
the last time, probably--and he passed out, giving no backward glance
at the figure that stood beneath the light in the drawing-room.

Winifred roused from her statue-like stillness as the door closed
behind him. The heavy breath of odorous flowers stole in through an
open window and sickened her. For years after she could not dissociate
their fragrance from the sorrow of that hour. She turned to the piano.
He had left his music--and he would never come back for it! She turned
away and climbed the stairs with heavy steps to her own room. And
there we will leave her, where, after the battle, a heavenly Visitor
was to come forth with bread and wine for her refreshing.

CHAPTER XIII

EXPERIENCE

Winifred's heart did not break. Or, if it broke, it was quickly
healed, for there dwelt in the house One whose office it is to bind up
the broken-hearted. It was not that she did not grieve, or that no
void cried out again and again to be filled. But she learned a paradox
as the days went on: of an inexplicable peace beneath the sharpest
pain, and of a buoyant joy that would not be held down by sorrow.
Hubert looked on, m