lizing with my heart as well as my
mind what such a resolution meant.

"Decide my fate!" he exclaimed again.

"Go and confess," I whispered to him. My voice failed me, but I whispered
it firmly. I took up the New Testament from the table, the Russian
translation, and showed him the Gospel of St. John, chapter xii. verse 24:

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit."

I had just been reading that verse when he came in. He read it.

"That's true," he said, but he smiled bitterly. "It's terrible the things
you find in those books," he said, after a pause. "It's easy enough to
thrust them upon one. And who wrote them? Can they have been written by
men?"

"The Holy Spirit wrote them," said I.

"It's easy for you to prate," he smiled again, this time almost with
hatred.

I took the book again, opened it in another place and showed him the
Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter x. verse 31. He read:

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

He read it and simply flung down the book. He was trembling all over.

"An awful text," he said. "There's no denying you've picked out fitting
ones." He rose from the chair. "Well!" he said, "good-by, perhaps I shan't
come again ... we shall meet in heaven. So I have been for fourteen years
'in the hands of the living God,' that's how one must think of those
fourteen years. To-morrow I will beseech those hands to let me go."

I wanted to take him in my arms and kiss him, but I did not dare--his face
was contorted and somber. He went away.

"Good God," I thought, "what has he gone to face!" I fell on my knees
before the ikon and wept for him before the Holy Mother of God, our swift
defender and helper. I was half an hour praying in tears, and it was late,
about midnight. Suddenly I saw the door open and he came in again. I was
surprised.

"Where have you been?" I asked him.

"I think," he said, "I've forgotten something ... my handkerchief, I
think.... Well, even if I've not forgotten anything, let me stay a
little."

He sat down. I stood over him.

"You sit down, too," said he.

I sat down. We sat still for two minutes; he looked intently at me and
suddenly smiled--I remembered that--then he got up, embraced me warmly and
kissed me.

"Remember," he said, "how I came to you a second time. Do you hear,
remember it!"

And he went out.

"To-