inions to which she had practically yielded; but not the
less had the serpent of the truth bitten her, for it can bite through
the gauze of whatever opinions or theories. Conscious, persistent wrong
may harden and thicken the gauze to a quilted armor, but even through
that the sound of its teeth may wake up Don Worm, the conscience, and
then is the baser nature between the fell incensed points of mighty
opposites. It avails a man little to say he does not believe this or
that, if the while he can not rest because of some word spoken. True
speech, as well as true scripture, is given by inspiration of God; it
goes forth on the wind of the Spirit, with the ministry of fire. The sun
will shine, and the wind will blow, the floods will beat, and the fire
will burn, until the yielding soul, re-born into childhood, spreads
forth its hands and rushes to the Father.

It was dark, and Juliet took the offered arm of the rector and walked
with him toward the house. Both were silent, for both had been touched.
The rector was busy tumbling over the contents now of this now of that
old chest and cabinet in the lumber-room of his memory, seeking for
things to get rid of by holy confession ere the hour of proclamation
should arrive. He was finding little yet beyond boyish escapades, and
faults and sins which he had abjured ages ago and almost forgotten. His
great sin, of which he had already repented, and was studying more and
more to repent--that of undertaking holy service for the sake of the
loaves and the fishes--then, in natural sequence, only taking the loaves
and the fishes, and doing no service in return, did not come under the
name of hypocrisy, being indeed a crime patent to the universe, even
when hidden from himself. When at length the heavy lids of his honest
sleepy-eyed nature arose, and he saw the truth of his condition, his
dull, sturdy soul had gathered itself like an old wrestler to the
struggle, and hardly knew what was required of it, or what it had to
overthrow, till it stood panting over its adversary.

Juliet also was occupied--with no such search as the rector's, hardly
even with what could be called thought, but with something that must
either soon cause the keenest thought, or at length a spiritual
callosity: somewhere in her was a motion, a something turned and
twisted, ceased and began again, boring like an auger; or was it a
creature that tried to sleep, but ever and anon started awake, and with
fretful claw