pure joy at
the catching of her breath. The moon was just rising above the Lebanon
cliff-line, and the beauty of the glorious night-dawn possessed her
utterly. Ah, it was a good world and a generous, bringing rich gifts to
the steadfast! Instinctively she felt that Tom's little confession did
not require an answer; that he was battling his way to the heights which
must be taken alone.

So they came in the sacred hush of the young night to a great tulip-tree
on the lawn, and where a curiously water-worn limestone boulder served
as a rustic seat wide enough for two whose hearts are one they sat down
together, still in the companionship that needs no speech. It was Tom
who first broke the silence.

"I have been trying ever since that night last winter to feel my way
out," he said slowly. "But what is to come of it? I can't go back to the
boyhood yesterdays; in a way I have hopelessly outgrown them. Let us
admit that religion has become real again; but Ardea, girl, it isn't
Uncle Silas's religion, or--or my mother's, or even yours. And I don't
know any other."

She laid a hand on one of his.

"It is all right, dear; there is only the one religion in all
Christendom--perhaps in all the world, or in God's part of it. The
difference is in people."

"But this thing that has been slowly happening to me--this thing I am
trying to call convincement: shall I wake up some day and find it gone,
with all the old doubts in the saddle again?" he asked it almost
wistfully.

"Who can tell?" she said gently. "But it will make no difference; the
immutable fact will be there just the same, whether you are asleep or
waking. We can't always stand on the Mount of Certainty, any of us; and
to some, perhaps, it is never given. But when one saves his enemy's life
and forgives and forgets--O Tom, dear! don't you understand?"

But now his eyes are love-blinded, and the white-gowned figure beside
him fills all horizons.

"I can't see past you, Ardea. Nevertheless, I'm going to believe that I
feel the good old pike solid underfoot ... and they say that the House
Beautiful is somewhere at the mountain end of it. If you will hold my
hand, I believe I can make out to walk in it; blindfolded, if I have
to--and without thinking too much of the yesterdays."

"Ah, the yesterdays!" she said tenderly. "They are precious, too; for
out of them, out of their hindrances no less than their helpings, comes
to-day. Kiss me, twice, Tom; and then I must go