He knew by these tokens that he possessed a power over this splendid
woman that none of the other men could wield,--she had lowered her eyes
to no other but him--and all the man in him sang exultantly under the
knowledge. He greeted her father, the little Seumas Cavan of indomitable
spirit, fresh, for all his march of a thousand miles, and he welcomed
them both to Zion. Again and again while he talked to them he caught
quick glances from the wonderful eyes;--glances of interest, of
inquiry,--now of half-hearted defiance, now of wondering submission.

The succeeding months had been a time of struggle with him--a struggle
to maintain his character of Elder after the Order of Melchisedek in the
full gaze of those velvety gray eyes, and in the light of her reckless,
full-lipped smile; to present to the temptress a shield of austere piety
which her softest glances should not avail to melt. For something in her
manner told him that she divined all his weakness; that, if she
acknowledged his power over her, she recognised her own power over him,
a power equal to and justly balancing the other. Even when he discoursed
from the pulpit, his glance would fasten upon hers, as if there were but
the one face before him instead of a thousand, and he knew that she
mocked him in her heart; knew she divined there was that within him
which strongly would have had her and himself far away--alone.

Nor was the girl's own mind all of a piece. For, if she flaunted herself
before him, as if with an impish resolve to be his undoing, there were
still times when he awed her by his words of fire, and by his high,
determined stand in some circle to which she knew she could never mount.
That night when he walked with her in the moonlight, she knew he had
trembled on the edge of the gulf fixed so mysteriously between them. She
had even felt herself leaning over to draw him down with her own warm
arms; and then all at once he had strangely moved away, widening this
mysterious gulf that always separated them, leaving her solitary, hurt,
and wondering. She could not understand it. Life called through them so
strongly. How could he breast the mighty rush? And why, why must it be
so?

During the winter that now came upon them, it became even a greater
wonder to her; for it was a time when all of them were drawn closer in a
common suffering--a time of dark days which she felt they might have
lightened for each other, and a time when she knew that more tha