"You, Jeremy!" he said in a low voice. "How come you here? Have you--were you here during the service!" "God has sent me to you," answered Master Taylor simply. "Yes, I have heard you preach, Percival, and I know that you have been shooting no bow at a venture, but speaking to your own troubled soul. Come with me and tell me of your trouble, the traces of which upon your countenance have sorely vexed my heart, while from yon dark corner I have, all unknown to yourself, watched and listened and wondered for this last hour or more." "I marvel that I did not see you," said Percival, still looking at his friend as though he felt himself in a dream; "but truly I saw nought that was around me. How come you here, Jeremy?" "It seemed long since I had heard aught of yourself and of her whom I scarce dare name," answered Master Taylor gently; "and my ministrations having been needed this morning and also in the forenoon at your church in the hollow, where an aged friend of my Lord Carbery's hath fallen ill, I was but now purposing to postpone my return to Gelli Aur until the morrow, in order that I might journey this evening towards Glyn Melen, in the hope of yet finding you within its walls. I but turned aside for an hour, to acquaint myself with yet another of these remote mountain churches, where I little thought to hear such a masterly discourse as yours, friend Percival. But of yourself." "I have been a wanderer these four days in the mountains," said Percival wearily, "and had little wish to preach to these poor simple folk lessons of patience which the least among them could have taught myself far better. But I chanced like you to note this ivy-covered tower in my ramblings, and, being seen this morning amid the congregation by the vicar, was entreated to take for him this evening service, that he might in his turn relieve a sick brother. Perchance it has been well, since open speech is wont at times to relieve a bursting heart. Is it sore hypocrisy, think you, friend Jeremy, to preach from the pulpit those virtues against which your inmost soul is meanwhile in fearful rebellion? I trow I am both hypocrite and blasphemer, for my own soul is dark within me; and while I know that God is just, I cannot feel that He is good! How many days of writhing torture, think you, the prophet endured ere he could bless Him for His dealings? Must not his human will, like some poor bird dashing with impotent rage against the bars of its cage, have for many a long hour beaten its wings against that divine will which is full of hidden mystery, into whose unseen depths I have been gazing throughout these weary days and nights, till my brain whirls and mine eyes are weary unto death--yet the light I see not!" "Shanno is dead?" said Master Taylor gently.