ssionate, headstrong,
having no reverence for God or man, no love for his mother, no sense
of duty towards his father; I have disowned him, once and forever, and
utterly cast him out! Let him beware and not come back to tempt me to
curse him!"

Still from the distance, overpowering and drowning the headlong rush of
passion, came the soft booming of the evening-bell.

"I hear the church-bell, Jacob: we have not long to hear it. Let us not
die cursing our son in our hearts. God gave him to us; and if Satan led
him astray, we know not how strong the temptation may have been, nor how
he may have fought against it."

Jacob Newell had nought to say in answer to this, but, from the passion
in his heart, and from that egotism that many good men have whose
religious education has taught them to make their personal godliness a
matter to vaunt over, he spoke, foolishly and little to the point,--

"Ruth, did Satan ever lead _me_ astray?"

"God knows!" she replied.

There came a rap at the door.

The melody of the church-bell was fast dying away. The last cadences of
sound, the last quiver in the air, when the ringer had ceased to ring
and the hammer struck the bell no more, lingered still, as a timid and
uncertain tapping fell upon the door.

"Come in!" said Jacob Newell.

The door was slowly opened.

Then there stood within it a tall, muscular man, a stranger in those
parts, with a ruddy face, and a full, brown beard. He stood grasping
the door with all his might, and leaning against it as for support.
Meanwhile his gaze wandered about the room with a strange anxiety, as
though it sought in vain for what should assuredly have been found
there.

"Good evening, Sir," said Jacob Newell.

The stranger made no reply, but still stood clinging to the door, with a
strange and horrible expression of mingled wonder and awe in his face.

"'Tis a lunatic!" whispered Ruth to her husband.

"Sir," said Jacob, "what do you want here to-night?"

The stranger found voice at length, but it was weak and timorous as that
of a frightened child.

"We were on the train, my wife and I, with our three little ones,--on
the train snowed in five miles back,--and we ask, if you will give it,
a night's lodging, it being necessary that we should reach home without
paying for our keeping at the hotel. My wife and children are outside
the door, and nearly frozen, I assure you."

Then Ruth's warm heart showed itself.

"Come in," she said. "K