"Hush, dear heart!" he answered tenderly, "you mistake my meaning. It is but for a little while I must needs go from your side. Think you that to-morrow, on our wedding-day that was to be, I can go to my lonely home and straightway enter upon the daily life therein which you were to have shared? Nay, Primrose, ere that can be, I must needs flee awhile from your beloved presence, and conquer this cowardly heart with none but God to witness its struggles. On yon mountain heights it has these seven days past been warring within me, but the fight unto death has not yet been accomplished! Sweetheart, a few short months you will be brave, and suffer me to leave you in the tender hands of those who love you! Believe me--Jeremy, tell her--that it is needful for me to go awhile into the wilderness, for my own soul's good and the good of those souls to whom I am pledged to minister! I cannot truly help you, sweet one, much less the flock committed to my sacred charge, while my own hard lesson is still unlearned! I dare not commit sacrilege! A few short months, Primrose, and a brave and true friend shall return to your side, content, in God's mercy, with those blessings still left to him, and able to rejoice in that love which, being as the love of the angels in heaven, must surely infinitely transcend the love of earth!" "He speaks well, dear mistress," said Master Taylor gently. "Bid him, in God's name, go forth and conquer, and rest assured of a reunion ere long in which the light of a holy and God-given love shall surely cheer your onward paths through this present world, and shine eternally in the world to come." Shanno's slender fingers tightened their clasp of her lover's arm convulsively for a moment as she murmured, "A few months apart from you, Percival! One month only in thought is an eternity!" Then she raised her white face and spoke bravely; "I have caused you pain enough, dear heart; and were your love not even now the sweetest thing to me on earth, I could weep bitter tears that you should e'er have seen my face! If I have been the unlucky cause of such suffering to you, my beloved, shall I not gladly endure long months, nay even years, of pain for your sake? As you watch and pray in your lonesome wanderings my spirit shall ever be at your side. It is verily broken within me, Percival, yet methinks it can still be brave for your sake. And you must go----" "On the morrow, when we have plighted our marriage vows," he answered solemnly. "Sweetheart, I thank you for your courage, which, God helping me, shall not be tried over long. Short, though bitter, shall be our parting, an I may, in His great mercy, win my soul in patience."