at the Grange, would
bring peace back; but there were dark hours, and I knew that there could
be no comfort till I had examined and fought it out."

"I suppose examination was right," said Ethel, "for a man, and defender
of the faith. I should only have tried to pray the terrible thought
away. But I can't tell how it feels."

"Worse than you have power to imagine," said Norman, shuddering. "It is
over now. I worked out their fallacies, and went over the reasoning on
our side."

"And prayed--" said Ethel.

"Indeed I did; and the confidence returned, firmer, I hope, than ever.
It had never gone for a whole day."

Ethel breathed freely. "It was life or death," she said, "and we never
knew it!"

"Perhaps not; but I know your prayers were angel-wings ever round me.
And far more than argument, was the thought of my father's heart-whole
Christian love and strength."

"Norman, you believed, all the time, with your heart. This was only a
bewilderment of your intellect."

"I think you are right," said Norman. "To me the doubt was cruel
agony--not the amusement it seems to some."

"Because our dear home has made the truth, our joy, our union," said
Ethel. "And you are sure the cloud is gone, and for ever?" she still
asked anxiously.

He stood still. "For ever, I trust," he said. "I hold the faith of my
childhood in all its fullness as surely as--as ever I loved my mother
and Harry."

"I know you do," said Ethel. "It was only a bad dream."

"I hope I may be forgiven for it," said Norman. "I do not know how
far it was sin. It was gone so far as that my mind was convinced last
Christmas, but the shame and sting remained. I was not at peace again
till the news of this spring came, and brought, with the grief, this
compensation--that I could cast behind me and forget the criticisms and
doubts that those miserable debates had connected with sacred words."

"You will be the sounder for having fought the fight," said Ethel.

"I do not dread the like shocks," said her brother, "but I long to leave
this world of argument and discussion. It is right that there should be
a constant defence and battle, but I am not fit for it. I argue for my
own triumph, and, in heat and harassing, devotion is lost. Besides, the
comparison of intellectual power has been my bane all my life."

"I thought 'praise was your penance here.'"

"I would fain render it so, but--in short, I must be away from it all,
and go to the simplest, hardest w